معرفی
Sarah Peters is a Professor in Psychology within the Division of Psychology & Mental Health at the University of Manchester's Faculty of Biology, Medicine & Health. She currently serves as Co-Director of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity Research Unit (EDI-RU) GMH (2021 to date) and was previously Director of the Manchester Centre for Health Psychology (2021 to 2025). She also leads the Greater Manchester qualitative and health psychology stream of the NorthWest NIHR Research Design Service.
Her research focuses on healthcare communication, particularly within challenging contexts such as medically unexplained symptoms, unhealthy behaviours and suicide. The goal of her work is to improve patient care through equipping health professionals to communicate more effectively with patients, relatives and colleagues. She specializes in integrating qualitative methods within randomised controlled trials to examine mechanisms of action, acceptability, feasibility and implementation of psychological and educational interventions.
Her recent publications demonstrate strong trends in qualitative methodologies applied to healthcare communication challenges across diverse populations including older adults in primary care, postpartum women with eating disorders, culturally diverse patient groups, and individuals with chronic conditions. Her work consistently emphasizes patient-centered communication and the development of practical interventions to improve clinical interactions.
Professor Peters serves on editorial boards for prestigious journals including the British Journal of Psychiatry, Social Science and Medicine, British Journal of Health Psychology, and Psychology & Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. She previously served as External Examiner for the MSc Health Psychology program at St Andrews.
She has supervised 38 doctoral students to completion and currently mentors 8 doctoral candidates working on diverse topics including laryngeal hypersensitivity, pain communication in children, ethnic diversity in health research, therapeutic alliance in online therapy, cultural differences in primary care, language of 'Teachable Moments' in midwifery, postnatal behavior change conversations, and suicide research guidelines.
Professor Peters leads research within the Manchester Centre for Health Psychology and is actively involved in multiple research projects including the STAR study focusing on chronic musculoskeletal pain in children, NIHR Research Support Service, and BART II investigating cognitive behavioral therapy for young adults at high risk of developing bipolar disorder.
