Dr Paulina Wegrzynek

Personal statement

I am a Senior Lecturer in Psychology. My research focuses on employee health and wellbeing, particularly when employees suffer with chronic pain and how that affects their work/return to work (RTW). I am also interested in wellbeing and moral injury in social work. My empirical work includes studies with return to work stakeholders (including employees, occupational health physicians, occupational therapists and occupational health advisors and nurses) about their perceptions of current RTW processes for chronic pain sufferers.

My doctoral work has already had significant interest from the Joint Work and Health Unit, when a commissioned organisation interviewed Dr Elaine Wainwright and I, enabling work led by my research to contribute to a scoping review of occupational health provision in the UK.

I have also collaborated on funded projects with Professor Jermaine Ravalier (the HOW Social Work Project) and Dr Elaine Wainwright (Fit for Purpose? An Evidence Synthesis of the Fit Note) and contributed to the Psychology Centre for Health and Cognition (PCHC).

I am module leader of the Level 5 Health Psychology module, which is concerned with the micro- and macro-context of health and illness, the experience of being "ill", treating illness, health-risk behaviours and health enhancement.

Academic qualifications

• PhD in Health and Organisational Psychology – Bath Spa University
• PGCert - Bath Spa University
• MSc Principles of Applied Neuropsychology - Bath Spa University
• BSc (Hons) Psychology - Bath Spa University

Professional qualifications

• Fellow - Higher Education Academy

Other external roles

• Reviewer - BMJ Open Journal

Areas of expertise

• Health Psychology
• Qualitative research methods in Psychology
• Individual differences in personality and intelligence
• Return to work and employee wellbeing