E-health, Interventions

Your intervention, your way! Short appraisal interventions

by Katarzyna Cantarero, SWPS University, Poland

Subjective well-being is a function of what we were born with, situations that pop up in our lives and (luckily!) what we intentionally do. Many researchers have examined what can effectively boost our psychological functioning. Short appraisal (or affirmation) interventions can be one helpful tool in enhancing positive outcomes for people.

Research shows that short writing tasks (e.g., gratitude lists or letters) can enhance psychological well-being. In a large multi-lab study, researchers from 87 countries indicated that simple reappraisal interventions (i.e., changing how one feels about a situation or focusing on positive aspects of a situation) boosted positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Appraising an event that is potentially stressful can be helpful in drawing benefits from it. During these appraisal tasks, individuals come up with arguments about the positive side of situations they find themselves in. 

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E-health, Mental Health

Carrying counseling outside the clinic: The promising potential of mobile technology

Egon Dejonckheere & Peter Kuppens, KU Leuven, Belgium.

Many forms of counseling and psychotherapy still predominantly take place within the therapy room. Yet, once patients leave the therapy room, they sometimes struggle to face their challenges, seize opportunities to get better, and implement what they learned in session. Evidence shows that therapeutic practice can greatly benefit from having direct access to information about what takes place in people’s daily lives. Such information can identify ways to intervene, and effectively close the gap between counseling sessions and real life. 

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Assessment, Communication, Coping, Illness representation

Helping patients manage their condition: Illness representations matter

By Yael Benyamini, Tel Aviv University, Israel and Evangelos C. Karademas, University of Crete, Greece

Anna and Mary are both healthy 45-year-old women, living in a large European city. Each of them knows several people who have contracted COVID-19 and constantly hears and reads about it. Anna believes it is a very serious disease, and is very concerned that if she contracts it, even though she believes that given her age she will recover, she will probably suffer from long-term bothersome symptoms. She works from home as much as possible, never walks outside without a mask, and is waiting for the next dose of vaccination.

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Coping, Social Support, Stress

How new insights into stress can help calm the worried mind

Bart Verkuil, Department of Clinical Psychology, Leiden University, The Netherlands and PEP Group, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

“What if I get infected and end up in the hospital?” “What if I can’t pay my bills in a few months?” “What effect will this lockdown have on my children’s the health?”

The threat of the coronavirus is having a huge impact on most of our lives. To determine what measures need to be taken and to estimate what risks we are facing, scientists use statistical models to gain insight into the spread of the virus. This surely helps to gain some control over this pandemic. Interestingly, we as individual human beings are continuously acting like these scientists, but in a more automatic manner; our human minds can be thought of as ‘prediction machines’, constantly estimating whether we are currently at risk of getting infected, losing our jobs or being criticized. Yet, there are large differences in how people estimate these risks and for some people these estimations spiral down to intense worries.

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Patient engagement

If medicine is a team game, patients should play too: a psychological perspective on patient engagement

By G. Graffigna, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

Healthcare professionals along the whole care journey must collaborate and coordinate their efforts for healthcare systems to function effectively. In other words, medicine requires teamwork to be successful. If we agree on this principle, then –adopting a sports metaphor –the patient too should be considered a player in the team!

The concept of patient engagement recognizes this, and it is an important ingredient for enhancing the effectiveness and sustainability of healthcare.

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Communication, Incentives, Motivational interviewing, Social Support

How to support patients to lose weight and better manage their type 2 diabetes

By Leah Avery, Teesside University, UK.

Type 2 diabetes was previously considered a progressive condition, with an inevitable need for insulin therapy, however lifestyle behavioural change research challenges this pessimistic prognosis. As prevalence of type 2 diabetes continues to increase, so does evidence supporting the important role of the food and changing what we eat to successfully manage the condition.

Dietary approaches can largely be divided into two. Those that focus on what we eat (e.g., carbohydrates) to optimise metabolism and glycaemic control via slow and steady weight loss. Others that focus on the amount eaten, such as the low-calorie diet involving significant energy restriction for rapid weight loss.

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Communication, Goal setting

Teaching practitioners Healthy Conversation Skills 

By Wendy Lawrence, University of Southampton

The main causes of death and disease in society today are influenced by our lifestyle choices, and there is a growing focus on ways to improve health behaviours. Front-line practitioners, particularly those working in health, social and community care roles, are a key resource for supporting behavioural change. Routine appointments offer opportunities to initiate conversations about behaviour change every week, but many practitioners feel that they lack the knowledge and skills necessary to provide behaviour change support. This can reduce our confidence for having conversations with clients or patients about potentially sensitive topics, including smoking, weight loss or alcohol intake.

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Automaticity, Habit, Self-efficacy

To eat or not to eat, that is the question: How can health psychology practitioners help people manage food safety?

By Barbara Mullan, Curtin University, Australia

Extent of the problem

Every year, one in 10 people worldwide (approximately 600 million people) become ill after eating contaminated food, and as many as 420,000 people die. There are vast geographical differences in where these instances occur, with African, South-East Asian, and Eastern Mediterranean regions bearing the highest burden of foodborne disease (further detail about the foodborne disease burden by region can be found here). In addition to these geographical differences, there are also vast differences in the types of agents that are responsible for foodborne disease (e.g., viruses, bacteria, parasites).

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Financial Incentives, Smoking cessation

Helping pregnant women quit smoking: sharing best practice from the UK

By Felix Naughton, University of East Anglia, UK

 Between 25-50% of female smokers quit smoking after they discover they are pregnant. But why do the remainder continue to smoke throughout their pregnancy?

 Do they not know that smoking during pregnancy is harmful? They usually do. One of our UK studies, that included pregnant women both motivated and unmotivated to quit, found 99% agreed to some degree with the statement ‘smoking during pregnancy can cause serious harm to my baby’ with around 75% agreeing very much or extremely. Yet less than 10% of them were abstinent 12 weeks later. While making a quit attempt is more likely among those with strong ‘harm beliefs’ about smoking in pregnancy, it does not appear to increase the chances of success. 

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Assessment, Brief behavioural intervention, Goal setting, Habit, Planning

Improving the delivery of brief alcohol advice in primary care: views from both sides of the consultation table

By Amy O’Donnell, Newcastle University, UK

Levels of drinking have fallen recently in some parts of Europe, particularly amongst young people. However, excessive alcohol consumption remains a major risk factor for poor health and early death. Providing simple brief advice to those identified as heavy drinkers can help reduce the amount of alcohol people consume, especially when delivered by primary care clinicians such as general practitioners (GPs) or nurses. Alcohol brief advice involves a short, evidence-based, structured conversation that aims to motivate and support a patient to consider a change in their drinking behaviour to reduce their risk of harm. We still haven’t fully identified the key ingredients of these conversations, but providing personalised feedback on a patient’s alcohol consumption, and encouraging them to self-monitor their drinking, seem to be particularly effective parts of the package.

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