Publications by authors named "Jennalee S Wooldridge"

Background: While structured compassion training programs have shown promise for increasing compassion among medical trainees, a major challenge is applying the concepts and practices taught during the program into the complex, dynamic, time-pressured, and often hectic hospital workplace.

Objective: The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effects of Compassion Coach, a mobile health (mHealth) smartphone app designed to bolster a 6-week mindfulness and self-compassion training program for medical trainees.

Methods: In Compassion Coach, notifications to remind, encourage, and measure the perceived impact of informal mindfulness and compassion practices taught during the program were delivered at 7 AM, 12 PM, and 7 PM, respectively, 3 times per week over the course of the training program.

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Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly affected the health and well-being of people globally. Some studies suggest individuals with overweight or obesity may have been more adversely impacted by pandemic restrictions. Additionally, military personnel may have been more vulnerable to stress during the pandemic because of job demands (e.

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Article Synopsis
  • Effective interventions for compassionate care rely on understanding how to assess compassion, and micro-ecological momentary assessment (micro-EMA) offers a real-time method to capture this.
  • A study involving 47 medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic used micro-EMA to track compassion levels, stress, and happiness over multiple 14-day periods, revealing daily compassion didn't change significantly, but individuals showed variability in their compassion levels.
  • The findings indicate that higher compassion is linked to increased happiness and reduced stress, suggesting micro-EMA is a viable tool for measuring compassion dynamics among medical students.
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Background: Diabetes impacts nearly 25% of veterans. Many veterans do not engage in recommended physical activity and other diabetes self-management behaviors. Type 2 diabetes is generally asymptomatic; as such, the long-term consequences of inadequate self-management and benefits of consistent self-management are not salient in the short term.

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Chronic pain (CP) is a debilitating and increasingly common health condition that adversely impacts function, including physical activity (PA). Research using ambulatory assessment (AA) methods (eg, ecological momentary assessment, actigraphy) offers promise for elucidating the relationship between momentary pain and objective PA in CP populations. This study aimed to systematically review articles assessing the association between momentary pain and PA in adults with CP as measured using AA and to make recommendations for the measurement and study of this relationship.

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Rationale: Couples-based interventions to facilitate health behavior change and improve disease outcomes are gaining attention from researchers. Dyadic research, however, poses unique methodological challenges that have raised questions about research samples and the generalizability of findings.

Objective: The current study examined whether couples in which both partners participated (i.

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Purpose: Explore the emotional experience of people with diabetes as they encounter words and phrases that have been previously identified as problematic and evaluate potential differences in their emotional impact based on type of diabetes and demographic characteristics.

Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study employing an online survey of 107 adults with type 1 diabetes and 110 adults with type 2 diabetes. A semantic differential scale was used to examine feeling states associated with negative diabetes language.

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Experiencing meaning in life may be particularly relevant following traumatic experiences as individuals who report meaning post trauma report less psychological distress. Engaging in avoidant coping, however, may be a sign of underlying psychological distress in the aftermath of traumatic experiences. We sought to examine associations among meaning in life, avoidant coping, and psychological distress in a sample of trauma-exposed veterans.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the links between stress, internalized weight stigma, emotional eating, and body fat percentage (BF%) among active-duty military personnel, revealing significant associations between these factors.
  • - Results indicated that both stress and stigma were related to higher rates of emotional eating and increased BF%, with stress partially explaining the relationship between stigma and emotional eating.
  • - The findings emphasize the need for stress management interventions, alongside further research to explore how stigma influences body fat percentage.
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Insomnia contributes to individual mental and physical health and relationship well-being. Veterans' PTSD symptoms are associated with their own insomnia. However, research has not explored whether and how veterans' PTSD symptoms are associated with their partners' insomnia.

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Background: This paper describes and discusses the transition of and modifications to a weight management randomized controlled trial among active-duty military personnel from an in-person to a virtual format as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The original pragmatic cohort-randomized controlled trial was designed to compare the effectiveness of an 8-week group weight management program, ShipShape, to a version of ShipShape enhanced with acceptance and commitment therapy.

Objective: The objective of our study was to assess potential differences between in-person and virtual participation in participants' demographics, motivation, confidence, credibility, expectations, and satisfaction with the interventions; we also examined the pragmatics of the technology and participants' experiences in virtual-format intervention groups.

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Objective: Relationship partners' impacts on health are not fully captured by existing measures. A measure that applies to a prevention context and accounts for both partners' perspectives is needed. This work developed and assessed the psychometric properties of the novel Partner Investment in Health scale (PI-H).

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Introduction: Increasing rates of overweight and obesity among military service members (SMs) necessitate the implementation of weight management interventions. Evidence for the effectiveness of military weight management interventions is mixed. Effectiveness may be impacted by individual sociodemographic, psychiatric, psychological, and behavioral factors.

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Objectives: Identify non-pharmacological interventions to support patient/caregiver dyads with ACSCs; review the effects of dyadic interventions on health services outcomes; and review the effectiveness of dyadic interventions on patient and caregiver biopsychosocial outcomes.

Methods: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Results: Twenty-six manuscripts representing 20 unique RCTs (Mean N = 154 patients, 140 caregivers) were eligible.

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Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are associated with poor health yet, we know little about how distinct patterns of ACE types are associated with cardiovascular (cardiovascular (CVD)) risk factors. The current study 1) examined associations of latent ACE classes with modifiable CVD risk factors including high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, hypertension, high triglycerides, physical inactivity, overweight/obesity, and lifetime depression; and 2) examined the impact of socioeconomic status-related (SES) factors on these relationships. Using a cross-sectional analysis of the National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (n = 36,309) data, four latent classes of ACEs were previously identified: 1) low adversity, 2) primarily household dysfunction, 3) primarily maltreatment, and 4) multiple adversity types.

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Comorbid symptoms such as post-traumatic stress and pain are common barriers to optimal self-management among veterans with type 2 diabetes. Additionally, self-management behaviors occur in the context of veterans' daily routines and social environments. This study evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) among veterans with type 2 diabetes.

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Introduction: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with poor psychosocial and health outcomes in adulthood. Veterans and females experience ACEs disproportionately. A greater understanding of this disparity may be achieved by examining the relationship between distinct ACE patterns and these demographic characteristics.

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Chronic health conditions (CHCs) are common and associated with functional limitations. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) shows promise in improving functioning, quality of life, and distress across several CHCs. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of technology-supported ACT for CHCs and perform a meta-analysis on functioning and ACT process outcomes.

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Background: Social relationships are important for pain management among individuals with HIV, but the impact of daily social contact on pain responses in real-time, real-world settings has never been specifically examined.

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between social contact frequency and pain, and the role of negative and positive affect in this relationship among older adults with HIV using ecological momentary assessment (EMA).

Methods: A total of 66 (Mage = 59.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The text discusses the challenges faced by patients with chronic health conditions (CHCs), including high costs, difficulty adhering to treatment, and mental distress, and introduces Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a promising intervention aimed at improving quality of life and functioning for these patients.
  • - A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to analyze the existing literature on single-session ACT interventions for CHC patients, focusing on study design, patient characteristics, and the effectiveness of these interventions across various health domains.
  • - Fourteen relevant studies were identified, highlighting a range of conditions targeted by ACT, with most studies conducted in workshop formats and demonstrating variable success in improving functioning and other health outcomes.
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Background: Interventions targeting weight-related experiential avoidance (EA) and disinhibited eating (DE) may also improve diet quality. Participants with overweight/obesity and DE who recently completed a behavioral weight-loss program were randomized to receive acceptance and commitment therapy or continued behavioral weight-loss treatment. In this secondary analysis, we explored (1) change in diet quality from baseline to 6-month follow-up (FU) and (2) whether weight-related EA at baseline and (3) change in weight-related EA during treatment were related to change in diet quality from baseline to FU.

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Article Synopsis
  • Obesity, binge-eating, and PTSD symptoms often occur together, with avoidance being a potential link between these issues.
  • A study with 89 veterans aimed to explore the connections between PTSD symptoms, binge-eating symptoms, and obesity-related quality of life, finding significant correlations among these factors.
  • Results indicated that while PTSD symptoms were related to both binge-eating and obesity-related well-being, experiential avoidance mediated the relationship between PTSD and obesity well-being but not binge-eating symptoms; further research is needed to clarify these relationships over time.
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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and eating disorders (ED) frequently co-occur, but the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. EDs are characterized by features of maladaptive eating behaviors including disinhibited eating and cognitive dietary restraint. Identifying the genetic overlap between PTSD symptoms and maladaptive eating behaviors may elucidate biological mechanisms and potential treatment targets.

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Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) increase risk for negative health outcomes. The goal of this study was to examine the relationships among cumulative ACEs, ACEs type, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, PTSD symptom clusters, and physical health symptoms in a sample of women veterans (N = 76). Bivariate correlations were used to determine which ACE domains were associated with PTSD and physical health symptoms.

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Objective: To examine the psychometric properties of the English language version of the 10-item Acceptance and Action Questionnaire for Weight-Related Difficulties-Revised (AAQW-R) in a United States (U.S.) sample of women and men with overweight/obesity (OW/OB).

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