Can causal explanations about endothelial pathophysiology benefit patient education? A cluster randomized controlled trial in cardiac rehabilitation.

Objective: To examine whether explaining causal links among endothelial pathophysiology, cardiac risk factors, symptoms and health behaviors (termed causal information) enhances patients' depth of knowledge about cardiovascular disease self-management and their perceptions of the cardiac rehabilitation and secondary prevention (CRSP) program.

Methods: Newly referred CRSP patients (N = 94) were cluster randomized to usual care (control; UC) or usual care with causal information (intervention; UC + CI). Depth of knowledge (factual vs.

Explaining the causal links between illness management and symptom reduction: Development of an evidence-based patient education strategy.

Objective: To determine whether explaining the causal links between illness management and symptom reduction would help younger and older adults learn and apply health information.

Method: Ninety younger and 51 older adults read about a fictitious disease with or without explanations about the cause-and-effects (causal information) of illness management. A knowledge test (applied vs.

What matters to patients with heart failure? The influence of non-health-related goals on patient adherence to self-care management.

Objective: To describe the life goals of heart failure (HF) patients and to determine whether adherence is influenced by the extent to which these priorities are perceived as compatible with HF self-care regimens.

Method: Forty HF outpatients identified their top-five life goals and indicated the compatibility of HF self-care regimens (diet, exercise, weighing) with these priorities. HF knowledge, self-efficacy and reported adherence were also assessed.

Openness to psychological explanations and treatment among people with fibromyalgia versus rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: The classic perspective in the psychosomatic literature is that patients with medically unexplained syndromes do not acknowledge psychologically-based causes for their conditions and will not engage in psychological treatments. These assumptions were tested by contrasting the illness models and reported treatment experiences of individuals with fibromyalgia (FM), a syndrome with a currently unknown organic origin, with those of individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a 'legitimate' (i.e.

Cognitive-emotional decision making (CEDM): a framework of patient medical decision making.

Objective: Assistance for patients faced with medical decisions has largely focussed on the clarification of information and personal values. Our aim is to draw on the decision research describing the role of emotion in combination with health behaviour models to provide a framework for conceptualizing patient decisions.

Methods: A review of the psychological and medical decision making literature concerned with the role of emotion/affect in decision making and health behaviours.

Deception in research on the placebo effect.

A common feature of research investigating the placebo effect is deception of research participants about the nature of the research. Miller and colleagues examine the ethical issues surrounding such deception.

What accounts for the appeal of complementary/alternative medicine, and what makes complementary/ alternative medicine "alternative"?

The goal of this study was to elucidate the basis for the appeal of complementary/alternative medicine (CAM) and the basis upon which people distinguish between CAM and conventional medicine. Undergraduates (N = 173) rated 19 approaches to the treatment of chronic back pain on 16 rating scales. Data were analyzed via 3-mode factor analysis, which extracted conceptual dimensions common to both the scales and the treatments.

The factor structure of the Coping Strategies Questionnaire.

The Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ) (Rosenstiel and Keefe 1983) is the most widely used measure of pain coping strategies. To date, with one exception (Tuttle et al. 1991), studies examining the factor structure of the CSQ have used the composite scores of its 8 a-priori theoretically derived scales rather than the 48 individual items.