App-based interventions to improve cancer outcomes rely on informational support from professionals: a systematic review.

The importance of social support for cancer patients is well-established, and mobile applications hold promise for implementation. This systematic review examines app-based interventions with social support components for cancer patients, investigating the use of different support functions from different sources and the impact on cancer-related symptoms and psychological outcomes. A systematic search across five databases (EMBASE, Scopus, PsycINFO, PubMed, Web of Science) yielded 449 records, of which 17 studies (12 controlled designs) were included.

Compendium of dyadic intervention techniques (DITs) to change health behaviours: a systematic review.

Background: Dyadic interventions for health behaviour change involving the romantic partner are promising. However, it often remains unclear how exactly the partner is involved in dyadic interventions. We propose a novel compendium of dyadic intervention techniques (DITs) that facilitates systematic description of dyadic interventions in terms of who performs what for whom during intervention delivery and subsequent implementation.

Let's Enjoy an Evening on the Couch? A Daily Life Investigation of Shared Problematic Behaviors in Three Couple Studies.

Symptom-system fit theory proposes that problematic behaviors are maintained by the social system (e.g., the couple relationship) in which they occur because they help promote positive relationship functioning in the short-term.

Dynamic associations between stress and relationship functioning in the wake of COVID-19: Longitudinal data from the German family panel (pairfam).

Individuals all across the world experienced significant disruptions in their personal and family life with the outbreak of the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The current study investigated dynamic associations between stress and relationship functioning over time in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Perceived stress, relationship satisfaction, and relationship quality (appreciation, intimacy, conflict) were reported by 1483 young to middle-aged participants who were in a romantic relationship and lived with their partner in 2018/2019 and in May-July 2020 (a few months after the onset of COVID-19).

Long-Term and Transfer Effects of an Action Control Intervention in Overweight Couples: A Randomized Controlled Trial Using Text Messages.

Keeping a physically active lifestyle requires consistent self-regulatory effort such as action control (e.g., continuously monitoring and evaluating a behavior in terms of one's goals).

Effectiveness of a Dyadic Buddy App for Smoking Cessation: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Tobacco smoking is one of the biggest public health threats. Smartphone apps offer new promising opportunities for supporting smoking cessation in real time. This randomized controlled trial investigated the effectiveness of an app that encourages individuals to quit smoking with the help of a social network member (buddy) in daily life.

Cultivation or enabling? Day-to-day associations between self-efficacy and received support in couples.

Objective: Theories and empirical findings identify social support and self-efficacy as important variables for behavior change. Two competing hypotheses describe the bidirectional relationship of these two constructs: The cultivation hypothesis assumes that self-efficacy facilitates social support, whereas the enabling hypothesis assumes that social support fosters self-efficacy. To shed more light on the interplay of interpersonal and intrapersonal factors in the behavior change context in daily life, the present study aims to investigate these hypotheses at the within-person level.

Daily support seeking as coping strategy in dual-smoker couples attempting to quit.

Objective: Smoking cessation is a stressful event and lapses are frequent. The dynamic model of relapse has been criticized for not integrating interpersonal factors as phasic influences. Seeking social support, as a coping strategy to deal with cravings, may help to refrain from smoking.

"We Feel Good": Daily Support Provision, Health Behavior, and Well-Being in Romantic Couples.

Intimate partners are an important source of support when pursuing health goals. A vast amount of literature documents the role of social support in alleviating recipients' distress and facilitating health behaviors. Less studied is the phenomenon that providing support may entail a benefit for the provider, particularly in the context of health behavior change.

How Do People Experience and Respond to Social Control From Their Partner? Three Daily Diary Studies.

Positive and negative forms of social control are commonly used to regulate another person's health-related behaviors, especially in couples. Social control efforts have been shown to result in desirable, but also undesirable effects on different outcomes. Little is known for which outcomes, when, and under which contextual conditions these different effects unfold in people's everyday lives.

Do Daily Compensatory Health Beliefs Predict Intention to Quit and Smoking Behavior? A Daily Diary Study during Smoking Cessation.

Compensatory health beliefs (CHBs) are a means to cope with motivational conflicts between intended health goals and the temptation for an unhealthy behavior. As CHBs can fluctuate on a daily basis, this study examined how daily CHBs are associated with daily intention to quit smoking and daily number of cigarettes smoked before and after a quit date at the between- and within-person level. The study comprised a prospective longitudinal design and investigated 83 women and 83 men for 32 consecutive days during an ongoing joint self-set quit attempt.

Understanding Between-Person Interventions With Time-Intensive Longitudinal Outcome Data: Longitudinal Mediation Analyses.

Background: Mediation analysis is an important tool for understanding the processes through which interventions affect health outcomes over time. Typically the temporal intervals between X, M, and Y are fixed by design, and little focus is given to the temporal dynamics of the processes.

Purpose: In this article, we aim to highlight the importance of considering the timing of the causal effects of a between-person intervention X, on M and Y, resulting in a deeper understanding of mediation.

Smoking cessation with smartphone applications (SWAPP): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Tobacco smoking remains one of the biggest public health threats. Smartphone apps offer new promising opportunities for supporting smoking cessation in real-time. The social context of smokers has, however, been neglected in smartphone apps promoting smoking cessation.

Couples' daily self-regulation: The Health Action Process Approach at the dyadic level.

Objective: Regulating health behavior change often occurs in a dyadic context of romantic relationships. Dyadic approaches to standard health behavior change models are, however, barely considered. We investigated volitional processes of the Health Action Process Approach model for two health behaviors within a dyadic context of romantic couples.

Interpersonal Processes of Couples' Daily Support for Goal Pursuit: The Example of Physical Activity.

Little is known about how couples' social support facilitates the pursuit of important goals in daily life. Using an interpersonal perspective, we examined the effects of support provision and receipt on same-day physical activity, and studied the role of partners' joint engagement in activities. One hundred nineteen heterosexual couples reported on target persons' received and partners' provided support across 28 diary days, yielding 2,854 valid days.

Mediators of Physical Activity Adherence: Results from an Action Control Intervention in Couples.

Background: Behavior change interventions targeting self-regulation skills have generally shown promising effects. However, the psychological working mechanisms remain poorly understood.

Purpose: We examined theory-based mediators of a randomized controlled trial in couples targeting action control (i.

Goal Disengagement, Well-Being, and Goal Achievement in Romantic Couples Pursuing Health Behavior Change: Evidence from Two Daily Diary Studies.

Background: Withdrawing effort and commitment from important goals (i.e. goal disengagement) has been discussed as an effective aspect of goal adaption.

Action control in dyads: A randomized controlled trial to promote physical activity in everyday life.

Rationale: Engaging in regular physical activity requires substantial self-regulatory effort such as action control (e.g., continuously monitoring and evaluating an ongoing behavior with regard to one's standards).

A Dyadic Action Control Trial in Overweight and Obese Couples (DYACTIC).

Background: Enhancing physical activity in overweight and obese individuals is an important means to promote health in this target population. The Health Action Process Approach (HAPA), which was the theoretical framework of this study, focuses on individual self-regulation variables for successful health behavior change. One key self-regulation variable of this model is action control with its three subfacets awareness of intentions, self-monitoring and regulatory effort.

Volitional processes and daily smoking: examining inter- and intraindividual associations around a quit attempt.

The Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) assumes that volitional processes are important for effective behavioral change. However, intraindividual associations have not yet been tested in the context of smoking cessation. This study examined the inter- and intraindividual associations between volitional HAPA variables and daily smoking before and after a quit attempt.

Predicting physical activity in adolescents: the role of compensatory health beliefs within the Health Action Process Approach.

Objective: Compensatory health beliefs (CHBs), defined as beliefs that healthy behaviours can compensate for unhealthy behaviours, may be one possible factor hindering people in adopting a healthier lifestyle. This study examined the contribution of CHBs to the prediction of adolescents' physical activity within the theoretical framework of the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA).

Design: The study followed a prospective survey design with assessments at baseline (T1) and two weeks later (T2).

Social control and smoking: examining the moderating effects of different dimensions of relationship quality.

A common form of social regulation of an individual's health behavior is social control. The contextual model of social control assumes that higher relationship quality goes along with more beneficial effects of social control on health behavior. This study examined potential differential moderating effects of different dimensions of relationship quality on the associations between positive and negative social control and smoking behavior and hiding smoking.