摘要:

Objectives.  To elicit students’ salient beliefs in relation to binge drinking, and to examine the extent to which individual salient beliefs predict theory of planned behaviour (TPB) constructs in relation to binge drink, and actual drinking behaviour assessed later that evening.Design.  Longitudinal, over a single evening.Methods.  192 students were recruited as they entered a campus bar at the beginning of the evening. They completed questionnaires with open‐ended questions eliciting beliefs concerning binge drinking, and ratings scales assessing standard TPB constructs in relation to binge drinking. At the end of the evening, 181 completed a second questionnaire and recorded the number of alcoholic drinks they had consumed.Results.  Beliefs were reliably coded (all kappas ≥0.79). Students with higher intentions to binge drink were more likely to believe that their friends approved of binge drinking, and that (lack of) money would make it difficult. Students who reported drinking more alcohol at the end of the evening were more likely to believe that getting drunk is an advantage/what they would like about binge drinking tonight, that their sports teams would approve, and that celebrating, drinking patterns, and environment would make it easy to binge drink.Conclusions.  The present study has identified the individually salient beliefs relating to drinking behaviour that the TPB states should be addressed by interventions to alter behaviour, and which that should be assessed as mediators in intervention research. As a whole, these findings highlight the importance of perceived peer norms in binge drinking in this population, and support the idea of interventions to challenge the perception of social pressure

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2010.02010.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objectives. Undergraduate students frequently exceed guideline limits for alcohol intake in a single session and are highly susceptible to associated health, social, and economic problems. Psychological theory suggests that interventions aimed at reducing alcohol consumption should target both motivational and volitional phases of action to be effective. This study reports an integrated theory‐based intervention aimed at reducing undergraduates’ alcohol consumption in excess of guideline limits.Design. The study adopted a 2 (motivation: mental simulationvs.no mental simulation) × 2 (volitional: implementation intentionvs.no implementation intention) randomized controlled design presented in an online format.Methods. Undergraduate students (N= 238; females,n= 133,Mage = 20.11,SD= 2.09; males,n= 105,Mage = 20.38,SD= 1.35) completed baseline psychological measures and self‐reported alcohol consumption as units consumed and heavy episodic drinking occasions followed by the intervention manipulation (if any). One month later participants completed follow‐up measures of the psychological variables and alcohol consumption.Results. Significant reductions in alcohol consumption were observed at follow‐up. Participants receiving a mental simulation intervention reported significantly fewer units of alcohol consumed and heavy episodic drinking occasions. Among participants with high baseline alcohol consumption, participants in the combined mental simulation and implementation intention intervention group consumed significantly fewer units than other groups.Conclusion. Results support the use of these theory‐based strategies to reduce alcohol drinking in excess of guideline limits among undergraduates. There was preliminary support for the interaction between the two strategies among heavier drinkers. Targeting both motivational and implemental phases of action poses a high probability for success in changing alcohol‐related beha

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2010.02011.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objectives. Behavioural responses to influenza pandemics can significantly influence the impact on public health. Protection motivation theory (PMT) provides a framework for understanding how people respond to health threats such as pandemics. The main aim of this study was to model the relative contribution of the components of PMT (threat and coping appraisal) to intentions to perform two behaviours recommended by the UK government in a pandemic: stay at home when ill and keep going to work when well.Design. A 2×2 factorial design was used to test the effect of scenarios describing pandemic severity (low vs. high threat) and advice messages (standard government advice vs. theory‐based advice) on measures of threat and coping appraisal, and intentions to carry out the two recommended behaviours.Methods. A web‐based survey designed to assess threat appraisal, coping appraisal, and behavioural intentions was completed by 883 adults (December 2009–January 2010) drawn from University College London staff and the local community. Structural equation modelling was used to test the PMT framework.Results. Perceived pandemic severity influenced threat and coping appraisals and intentions. Structural equation modelling revealed that coping appraisal (i.e., perceptions of the costs, benefits, and feasibility of the recommended behaviours) was the principal predictor of variability in intentions for both behaviours and for both pandemic scenarios.Conclusions. Coping appraisals appear to be an important, and hitherto underresearched, predictor of how people may behave in pandemics, and our findings provide encouraging preliminary evidence that it may be possible to change t

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2011.02017.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objectives. In most computer‐tailored interventions, the recipient's name is used to personalize the information. This is done to increase the process of persuasion but few empirical data exist that support this notion.Design. An experimental laboratory study was conducted to test the effects of mentioning the participants name and to study whether it was related to the depth of processing in a 2 (personalization/standard) × 2 (weak/strong arguments) design.Methods. Over 120 student smokers were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions in which they read smoking cessation messages offering (pre‐tested) strong or weak arguments. Personalization was applied by mentioning the recipient's first name three times in the text. The intention to quit smoking was the dependent variable.Results. Personalization increased persuasion when perceived personal relevance was high, but it decreased persuasion when perceived personal relevance was low. The effects on persuasion were only present in the case of strong arguments.Conclusions. Personalization is not always effective, and it may even lead to less persuasion. Therefore, this often used way to tailor messages must be app

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2011.02029.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objective. While effective preventative medication is readily available for asthma, adherence is a major problem due to patients’ beliefs about their illness and medication. We investigated whether a text message programme targeted at changing patients’ illness and medication beliefs would improve adherence in young adult asthma patients.Methods. Two hundred and sixteen patients aged between 16 and 45 on asthma preventer medication were recruited from pamphlets dispensed with medication and e‐mails sent to members of a targeted marketing website. Participants were randomized to receive individually tailored text messages based on their illness and medication beliefs over 18 weeks or no text messages. Illness and medication beliefs were assessed at baseline and at 18 weeks. Adherence rates were assessed by phone calls to participants at 6, 12, and 18 weeks and at 6 and 9 months.Results. At 18 weeks, the intervention group had increased their perceived necessity of preventer medication, increased their belief in the long‐term nature of their asthma, and their perceived control over their asthma relative to control group (allp's<.05). The intervention group also significantly improved adherence over the follow‐up period compared to the control group with a relative average increase in adherence over the follow‐up period of 10% (p<.001). The percentage taking over 80% of prescribed inhaler doses was 23.9% in the control group compared to 37.7% in the intervention group (p<.05).Conclusion. A targeted text message programme increases adherence to asthma preventer inhaler and may be useful for other illnesses where adheren

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2011.02033.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objectives.To test the prediction that Openness to Experience (O) is a protective factor with respect to all‐cause mortality. To provide a method of calculating a standard effect size estimate (requivalent) from relative risk (RR) and odds ratios (OR).Methods.A meta‐analysis of 11 (N= 19, 941) studies linking O to all‐cause mortality is reported. Analyses are conducted on the total sample and on sub‐samples with and without other mortality risk factors (e.g., age, social class) controlled. The same analyses are also conducted on the studies that used indices of O based on standard measures of the five‐factor model (FFM: NEO and Goldberg's adjective markers). This paper also provides a means of calculating anrequivalentfrom RR and OR.Results.The results show that for all studies O is a protective factor (r= .051) and this effect is slightly higher (r= .064) when only FFM measures are used. When risk factors are not controlled, the protective effect for O is .091 for all studies and .097 for FFM indices. However, a predicted attenuation is observed when standard mortality risk factors are controlled to .028 for all measures and .036 for FFM measures.Conclusions.While O is protective with respect to all‐cause mortality, the effect is attenuated by other mortality risk factors and future work needs to explore the complex independent, moderating, and mediating processes linking O to all‐ca

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2011.02055.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objectives. This primary objective of the study was to examine the direct and moderating effects of hardiness on the prediction of sport injury, and the direct and indirect effects of hardiness on athletes’ responses to injury.Design. This study employed a longitudinal methodological design. Specifically, the injury status of 694 asymptomatic participants was monitored for 2 years. From the original sample, 104 athletes subsequently became injured and then completed a number of questionnaires throughout their recovery.Methods. Logistic regression, Pearson product‐moment correlation and Preacher and Hayes's (2008) bootstrapping procedure were used to analyse the data.Results. Findings revealed a direct and moderating effect of hardiness on the prediction of injury. Hardiness was also found to positively correlate with desirable, and negatively correlate with undesirable post‐injury psychological responses and coping strategies throughout recovery. Finally, problem‐focused coping was found to mediate certain effects of hardiness on injured athletes’ psychological responses.Conclusions. These findings have important implications for practitioners who have a vested interest in the health and well‐being of those who participate in sport and exercise in terms of minimizing rates of injury occurrence and/or facilitating

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2011.02025.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objectives. Past studies expected measures of obesity to be positively associated with positive affects. However, this hypothesis was not tested in reference to a specific positive affect. We tested the hypothesized unidirectional effects of measures of obesity on vigour, representing a positive affect, and of vigour on measures of obesity.Design. We used a longitudinal design, separately for men and women. Participants were 1,876 and 931 healthy men and women, respectively, examined at Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2), about 2 years apart.Methods. Measures of obesity included body mass index, waist circumference, and waist‐to‐hip ratio. Vigour was assessed by the Shirom–Melamed Vigour Measure. We used structural equation modelling to test our hypotheses.Results. We found that for both genders, T1 measures of obesity did not predict either T1 or T2 vigour. Among both genders, we found support for the effects of T1 vigour on T1 but not on T2 measures of obesity.Conclusions. To the extent that the ‘Jolly fat hypothesis’ refers to the effects of measures of obesity on positive affects, we failed to support it for vigour as a positive affect. Vigour has contemporaneous but not longitudinal eff

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2011.02026.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objectives. This study aimed to improve understanding of how young UK genito‐urinary medicine (GUM) patients perceive the risk of chlamydia, and identify implications for health education.Design. A qualitative methodology was chosen.Methods. Semi‐structured interviews with 27 respondents aged 16–22 years old were conducted. Data were subjected to thematic analysis.Results. Respondents made assessments of the perceived seriousness of, and their personal susceptibility to, chlamydia infection. Judgements about seriousness were related to beliefs about the controllability of symptoms and the long‐term health consequences of infection. Susceptibility estimates were related to beliefs about the extent to which personal exposure put them in contact with chlamydia, and about the prevalence of infection amongst their peer group. This is consistent with the content of illness risk representations proposed by Cameron (2003). Respondents demonstrated some beliefs, which appeared to influence perceptions of seriousness and susceptibility in unhelpful ways.Conclusions. Young people may be underestimating their risk of chlamydia infection due to the presence of unhelpful beliefs. Dialogue between health professionals and patients within GUM clinics, or through consultations as part of the National Chlamydia Screening Programme (NCSP), could provide vehicles to deliver health education to target these. Suggested health education includes highlighting false reassurance provided by treatment beliefs and exposing the fallibility of using overt characteristics to judge the likelihood that a potential sexual partner poses a

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2011.02027.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Objectives. To explore the lived experience of breast cancer in relation to the treatment decision‐making process over time.Design. Adopting a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, semi‐structured interviews were undertaken at three points in time during the year following diagnosis.Methods. After ethical approval had been obtained, 20 women who were recently diagnosed with breast cancer were recruited from a Symptomatic Breast Cancer Unit in the North East of England.Results. Four themes emerged: role in the treatment decision‐making process; acceptance of medical opinions; getting rid of it; and cancer schemas. The majority of women reported a passive role in the surgical treatment decision‐making process and all women did so in relation to subsequent treatment decisions. However, women adopted this role consciously and consequently were not disengaged from the process but maintained a sense of ownership and control over their health. The women did not describe experiencing decisional regret at any point in the year following diagnosis and rarely revisited the decisions made, only doing so in a positive manner. Trust in the abilities and experience of healthcare professionals and maximizing chances of survival were cited as reasons for not having had greater involvement. Despite being given information about treatment options, many women made the decision not to attend to this information perceiving this to be anxiety provoking.Conclusions. The findings from this study suggest a need for eliciting more specific psycho‐social interactions in the treatment decision‐making process in order to identify ways in which women can be supported throug

ISSN:1359-107X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-8287.2011.02028.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:2012

数据来源: WILEY