A protocol for a feasibility study of Cognitive Bias Modification training (IVY) countering fatigue in people with breast cancer.

Background: Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is the most prevalent, distressing, and quality of life disturbing symptom during and after cancer treatment for many cancer types including breast cancer. The experience and burden of this symptom can induce a cognitive bias towards fatigue or a fatigue-related self-image, which can further increase the fatigue symptoms and related behaviour. For this, a Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) eHealth app (IVY) has been developed.

Comparing the Effectiveness of the Blended Delivery Mode With the Face-to-Face Delivery Mode of Smoking Cessation Treatment: Noninferiority Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Tobacco consumption is a leading cause of death and disease, killing >8 million people each year. Smoking cessation significantly reduces the risk of developing smoking-related diseases. Although combined treatment for addiction is promising, evidence of its effectiveness is still emerging.

Cognitive Bias Modification Training Targeting Fatigue in Patients With Kidney Disease: Usability Study.

Background: Fatigue is an important symptom for many patients, including patients with kidney disease. Cognitive biases, such as attentional bias and self-identity bias, are thought to influence fatigue. Cognitive bias modification (CBM) training is a promising technique to counter fatigue.

Implementation and User Evaluation of an eHealth Technology Platform Supporting Patients With Cardiovascular Disease in Managing Their Health After a Cardiac Event: Mixed Methods Study.

Background: eHealth technology can help patients with cardiovascular disease adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle by supporting self-management and offering guidance, coaching, and tailored information. However, to support patients over time, eHealth needs to blend in with their needs, treatment, and daily lives. Just as needs can differ between patients, needs can change within patients over time.

Augmenting outpatient alcohol treatment as usual with online approach bias modification training: A double-blind randomized controlled trial.

Previous research shows that automatic tendency to approach alcohol plays a causal role in problematic alcohol use and can be retrained by Approach Bias Modification (ApBM). ApBM has been shown to be effective for patients diagnosed with alcohol use disorder (AUD) in inpatient treatment. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of adding an online ApBM to treatment as usual (TAU) in an outpatient setting compared to receiving TAU with an online placebo training.

An ideographic study into physiology, alcohol craving and lapses during one hundred days of daily life monitoring.

Introduction: Alcohol craving is a highly challenging obstacle to achieve long-term abstinence. Making alcohol use disorder patients timely aware of high-risk craving situations may protect them against relapse by prompting them to mobilize their coping resources. Current advances in wearable and smart-phone technology provide novel opportunities for the development of detecting these situations of heightened risk of craving, by enabling continuous tracking of fluctuations in psychological and physiological parameters.

Values of Importance to Patients With Cardiovascular Disease as a Foundation for eHealth Design and Evaluation: Mixed Methods Study.

Background: eHealth interventions are developed to support and facilitate patients with lifestyle changes and self-care tasks after being diagnosed with a cardiovascular disease (CVD). Creating long-lasting effects on lifestyle change and health outcomes with eHealth interventions is challenging and requires good understanding of patient values.

Objective: The aim of the study was to identify values of importance to patients with CVD to aid in designing a technological lifestyle platform.

Cognitive Bias Modification Training to Improve Implicit Vitality in Patients With Breast Cancer: App Design Using a Cocreation Approach.

Background: More than 50% of all patients with breast cancer experience fatigue symptoms during and after their treatment course. Recent evidence has shown that fatigue is partly driven by cognitive biases such as the self-as-fatigued identity bias, which may be corrected with computer-based cognitive bias modification (CBM) techniques.

Objective: The aim of this study was to design a CBM-training app by adopting a cocreation approach.

Adherence to Blended or Face-to-Face Smoking Cessation Treatment and Predictors of Adherence: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Blended face-to-face and web-based treatment is a promising way to deliver smoking cessation treatment. Since adherence has been shown to be an indicator of treatment acceptability and a determinant for effectiveness, we explored and compared adherence and predictors of adherence to blended and face-to-face alone smoking cessation treatments with similar content and intensity.

Objective: The objectives of this study were (1) to compare adherence to a blended smoking cessation treatment with adherence to a face-to-face treatment; (2) to compare adherence within the blended treatment to its face-to-face mode and web mode; and (3) to determine baseline predictors of adherence to both treatments as well as (4) the predictors to both modes of the blended treatment.

Patients' User Experience of a Blended Face-to-Face and Web-Based Smoking Cessation Treatment: Qualitative Study.

Background: Blended web-based and face-to-face (F2F) treatment is a promising electronic health service because the strengths of one mode of delivery should compensate for the weaknesses of the other.

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore this compensation by examining patients' user experience (UX) in a blended smoking cessation treatment (BSCT) in routine care.

Methods: Data on patients' UX were collected through in-depth interviews (n=10) at an outpatient smoking cessation clinic in the Netherlands.

Alcohol Avoidance Training as a Mobile App for Problem Drinkers: Longitudinal Feasibility Study.

Background: Alcohol use is associated with an automatic tendency to approach alcohol, and the retraining of this tendency (cognitive bias modification [CBM]) shows therapeutic promise in clinical settings. To improve access to training and to enhance participant engagement, a mobile version of alcohol avoidance training was developed.

Objective: The aims of this pilot study were to assess (1) adherence to a mobile health (mHealth) app; (2) changes in weekly alcohol use from before to after training; and (3) user experience with regard to the mHealth app.

A standardized validity assessment protocol for physiological signals from wearable technology: Methodological underpinnings and an application to the E4 biosensor.

Wearable physiological measurement devices for ambulatory research with novel sensing technology are introduced with ever increasing frequency, requiring fast, standardized, and rigorous validation of the physiological signals measured by these devices and their derived parameters. At present, there is a lack of consensus on a standardized protocol or framework with which to test the validity of this new technology, leading to the use of various (often unfit) methods. This study introduces a comprehensive validity assessment protocol for physiological signals (electrodermal activity and cardiovascular activity) and investigates the validity of the E4 wearable (an example of such a new device) on the three levels proposed by the protocol: (1) the signal level, with a cross-correlation; (2) the parameter level, with Bland-Altman plots; and (3) the event level, with the detection of physiological changes due to external stressor levels via event difference plots.

Towards sustainable mental health promotion: trial-based health-economic evaluation of a positive psychology intervention versus usual care.

Background: Mental well-being could be promoted and protected by positive psychology (PP) based interventions. Such interventions may be appealing for people at risk of anxiety and depressive disorders, but health-economic evaluations are scarce. The aim was to examine the cost-effectiveness of a PP intervention.

Blended Smoking Cessation Treatment: Exploring Measurement, Levels, and Predictors of Adherence.

Background: Blended face-to-face and Web-based treatment is a promising way to deliver cognitive behavioral therapy. Since adherence has been shown to be a measure for treatment's acceptability and a determinant for treatment's effectiveness, in this study, we explored adherence to a new blended smoking cessation treatment (BSCT).

Objective: The objective of our study was to (1) develop an adequate method to measure adherence to BSCT; (2) define an adequate degree of adherence to be used as a threshold for being adherent; (3) estimate adherence to BSCT; and (4) explore the possible predictors of adherence to BSCT.

Time-varying covariates and coefficients in Cox regression models.

Time-varying covariance occurs when a covariate changes over time during the follow-up period. Such variable can be analyzed with the Cox regression model to estimate its effect on survival time. For this it is essential to organize the data in a counting process style.

Effectiveness of intensive smoking reduction counselling plus combination nicotine replacement therapy in promoting long-term abstinence in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease not ready to quit smoking: Protocol of the REDUQ trial.

Introduction: Limited tobacco dependence treatment resources exist for smoking COPD patients not ready to quit. Smoking reduction may be a viable treatment approach if it prompts quit attempts and subsequent abstinence. This article describes the protocol of the REDUQ (REDUce and Quit) study, which examines whether smoking reduction counselling plus combination nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is (cost-)effective in achieving long-term abstinence in smoking COPD patients not ready to quit.

Identification of Users for a Smoking Cessation Mobile App: Quantitative Study.

Background: The number of mobile apps that support smoking cessation is growing, indicating the potential of the mobile phone as a means to support cessation. Knowledge about the potential end users for cessation apps results in suggestions to target potential user groups in a dissemination strategy, leading to a possible increase in the satisfaction and adherence of cessation apps.

Objective: This study aimed to characterize potential end users for a specific mobile health (mHealth) smoking cessation app.

Augmenting Outpatient Alcohol Treatment as Usual With Online Alcohol Avoidance Training: Protocol for a Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Recent theoretical models emphasize the role of impulsive processes in alcohol addiction, which can be retrained with computerized Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) training. In this study, the focus is on action tendencies that are activated relatively automatically.

Objective: The aim of the study is to examine the effectiveness of online CBM Alcohol Avoidance Training using an adapted Approach-Avoidance Task as a supplement to treatment as usual (TAU) in an outpatient treatment setting.

An early intervention to promote well-being and flourishing and reduce anxiety and depression: A randomized controlled trial.

Background: There is growing evidence that fostering mental well-being and flourishing might effectively prevent mental disorders. In this study, we examined whether a 9-week comprehensive positive self-help intervention with email support (TL-E) was effective in enhancing well-being and flourishing and decreasing anxiety and depressive symptoms in a non-clinical sample.

Methods: A total of 275 participants with low or moderate well-being (mean age = 48 years, 86% female) were randomly assigned to a TL-E ( = 137) or wait-list control group (WL;  = 138).

The impact of non-response bias due to sampling in public health studies: A comparison of voluntary versus mandatory recruitment in a Dutch national survey on adolescent health.

Background: In public health monitoring of young people it is critical to understand the effects of selective non-response, in particular when a controversial topic is involved like substance abuse or sexual behaviour. Research that is dependent upon voluntary subject participation is particularly vulnerable to sampling bias. As respondents whose participation is hardest to elicit on a voluntary basis are also more likely to report risk behaviour, this potentially leads to underestimation of risk factor prevalence.

Study protocol for a non-inferiority trial of a blended smoking cessation treatment versus face-to-face treatment (LiveSmokefree-Study).

Background: Smoking cessation can significantly reduce the risk of developing smoking-related diseases. Several face-to-face and web-based treatments have shown to be effective. Blending of web-based and face-to-face treatment is expected to improve smoking cessation treatment.

A school-based programme for tobacco and alcohol prevention in special education: effectiveness of the modified 'healthy school and drugs' intervention and moderation by school subtype.

Aims: To test the effectiveness of the Healthy School and Drugs (HSD) programme on tobacco and alcohol use in Dutch secondary special education (SE) schools, and whether this depends upon subtypes of SE schools and the level of implementation.

Design: In a quasi-experimental design with baseline and post-treatment follow-up, 363 students were allocated arbitrarily or depending on teacher motivation to either intervention condition (n = 205) or usual curriculum (n = 158).

Setting: Thirteen secondary SE schools spread throughout the Netherlands.

Validation of the Flourishing Scale in a sample of people with suboptimal levels of mental well-being.

Background: There is growing interest in measuring the eudaimonic perspective of mental well-being (social and psychological well-being) alongside existing measures of the hedonic perspective of mental well-being (subjective well-being). The Flourishing Scale (FS) assesses core aspects of social-psychological functioning and is now widely used in research in practice. However, the reliability and validity of eudaimonic measures such as the FS has not yet been tested in people with low or moderate levels of well-being.

Efficacy of a Multicomponent Positive Psychology Self-Help Intervention: Study Protocol of a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Positive psychology interventions have been found to enhance well-being and decrease clinical symptomatology. However, it is still unknown how flourishing can also be increased. Although multicomponent interventions seem to be necessary for this purpose, different formats can be used.

How does injury compensation affect health and disability in patients with complaints of whiplash? A qualitative study among rehabilitation experts-professionals.

Purpose: To explore rehabilitation professionals' opinions about the influence and the pathways of injury compensation (IC) on health and disability in patients with whiplash associated disorder (WAD).

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were performed among a purposeful selected sample of Dutch expert-professionals in the field of rehabilitation of patients with WAD. Inclusion continued until saturation was reached.