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Background: There is increasing evidence that discharge planning and post-discharge support for CHF patients can contribute greatly to the medical management of heart failure (CHF) in the community and that the quality of the CHF patient's close personal relationships can influence outcome in CHF. However, there has been little research on the impact of CHF on the family or the role of the family in the management of the condition. In this paper, we provide a review and analysis of studies that have explicitly investigated these issues in the informal carers of CHF patients. Results of the review: Sixteen papers were identified that examined the role and/or impact of informal caregiving for CHF patients. Our main findings were: demands specific to CHF caregiving were identified, e.g., monitoring complex medical and self-care regimen, disturbed sleep and frequent hospitalisation of patients. Relatively high levels of emotional distress were identified in CHF caregivers. Few studies explicitly investigated the role of informal carers in the management of CHF. Studies were limited in number, scope and quality. Conclusion: Caring for a family member with CHF can affect the well-being of those responsible for care, which may have consequences for the CHF patient's health. Further studies are needed to clarify these issues and to examine the role of informal caregivers in the management of CHF in the community.

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Cognitive--behavioral therapy (CBT) is the psychological treatment of choice for panic disorder (PD). However, given limited access to CBT, it must be delivered with maximal cost-effectiveness. Previous researchers have found that a brief computer-augmented CBT was as effective as extended therapistdelivered CBT. To test this finding, this study randomly allocated 186 patients with PD across 2 sites in Scotland and Australia to 12 sessions of therapist-delivered CBT (CBT12), 6 sessions of therapistdelivered (CBT6) or computer-augmented CBT (CBT6-CA), or a waitlist control. On a composite measure, at posttreatment, the outcome for CBT12 was statistically better than the outcome for CBT6. The outcome for CBT6-CA fell between CBT12 and CBT6, but could not be statistically distinguished from either treatment. The active treatments did not differ statistically at 6-month follow-up. The study provided some support for the use of computers as an innovative adjunctive-therapy tool and merits further investigation.Substantial research evidence indicates that the psychological treatment of choice for panic disorder is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention (Barlow, Gorman, Shear, & Woods, 2000;Hofmann & Spiegel, 1999;Otto, Pollack, & Maki, 2000). As a result, there has been a corresponding growth of demand for treatment, an increase in waiting times in some health care systems, and consequently, pressure for more accessible and efficient forms of treatment delivery.This need is further highlighted by the high prevalence of panic disorder (Kessler et al., 1994) as well as by the nature of the condition, which often involves a level of agoraphobic avoidance. This may limit patients' regular clinic attendance and their access to conventional therapist-administered treatment (Co ˆte ´, Gauthier, Laberge, Cormier, & Plamondon, 1994). To date, one of the main alternatives to conventional CBT delivery has involved the use of written self-help materials, or bibliotherapy.Bibliotherapy (Dow, 1982) has proven to be as effective as eight sessions of group or individual CBT (Lidren et al., 1994), although Power, Sharp, Swanson, andSimpson (2000) found a totally self-administered bibliotherapy condition to be significantly less effective on a range of outcome measures compared with "standard" therapist-delivered CBT. This may be related to the inaccessibility and inconvenience of bibliotherapy during daily activities. One possible solution to the limits of bibliotherapy lies in computer-assisted therapy.Computers can increase patient access to treatment programs (Kenardy, McCafferty, & Rosa, 2003); extend therapy to the patient's own environment; and enhance cost-effectiveness, with costs reduced to between one third and one sixth that of conventional behavioral treatment (Kenardy & Adams, 1993;Newman, 2000). Computer programs have been shown to be effective adjuncts to more conventional treatment for a variety of anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and gener...

Levels of affective distress, sources of stress and coping strategies reported by first-year student nurses in Tayside, Scotland, were measured using the General Health Questionnaire (30-item version), the Beck & Srivastava Stress Inventory (BSSI) and a modified 'Ways of Coping Questionnaire'. Screening showed that, around the time of an initial series of hospital placements, 50.5% of students in cohort 1 (n = 109, week 40) and 67.9% of students in cohort 2 (n = 111, week 24) suffered significant affective distress. This exceeds levels reported in published studies of degree nursing students, fourth-year medical students, and the general female population. Distressed students reported the same sources of stress as the non-distressed students, but suffered them more intensely. Many BSSI items were seen as common sources of stress; however, the frequency with which an item was reported to be stressful was not related to whether scores on that item predicted overall distress. In both cohorts, the use of direct coping was associated with lower levels of distress, and with lower total stress scores on the BSSI. The use of fantasy and hostility was associated with high levels of distress and stress, in both groups. This screens of 220 first-year student nurses suggests that there is a problem with student distress around an initial series of general/surgical and psycho-social ward placements. The possible determinants of this distress and complex, and it is unlikely that presenting information alone will be sufficient to reduce this distress.

Background: Type-D personality is treated as a categorical variable and caseness has

BackgroundAdvancements in mobile phone technology offer huge potential for enhancing the timely delivery of health behavior change interventions. The development of smartphone-based health interventions (apps) is a rapidly growing field of research, yet there have been few longitudinal examinations of how people experience and use these apps within their day-to-day routines, particularly within the context of a hybrid Web- and app-based intervention.ObjectiveThis study used an in-depth mixed-methods design to examine individual variation in (1) impact on self-reported goal engagement (ie, motivation, self-efficacy, awareness, effort, achievement) of access to a weight management app (POWeR Tracker) when provided alongside a Web-based weight management intervention (POWeR) and (2) usage and views of POWeR Tracker.MethodsThirteen adults were provided access to POWeR and were monitored over a 4-week period. Access to POWeR Tracker was provided in 2 alternate weeks (ie, weeks 1 and 3 or weeks 2 and 4). Participants’ goal engagement was measured daily via self-report. Mixed effects models were used to examine change in goal engagement between the weeks when POWeR Tracker was and was not available and whether the extent of change in goal engagement varied between individual participants. Usage of POWeR and POWeR Tracker was automatically recorded for each participant. Telephone interviews were conducted and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis to further explore participants’ experiences using POWeR and POWeR Tracker.ResultsAccess to POWeR Tracker was associated with a significant increase in participants’ awareness of their eating (β1=0.31, P=.04) and physical activity goals (β1=0.28, P=.03). The level of increase varied between individual participants. Usage data showed that participants used the POWeR website for similar amounts of time during the weeks when POWeR Tracker was (mean 29 minutes, SD 31 minutes) and was not available (mean 27 minutes, SD 33 minutes). POWeR Tracker was mostly accessed in short bursts (mean 3 minutes, SD 2 minutes) during convenient moments or moments when participants deemed the intervention content most relevant. The qualitative data indicated that nearly all participants agreed that it was more convenient to access information on-the-go via their mobiles compared to a computer. However, participants varied in their views and usage of the Web- versus app-based components and the informational versus tracking tools provided by POWeR Tracker.ConclusionsThis study provides evidence that smartphones have the potential to improve individuals’ engagement with their health-related goals when used as a supplement to an existing online intervention. The perceived convenience of mobile access to information does not appear to deter use of Web-based interventions or strengthen the impact of app access on goal engagement. A mixed-methods design enabled exploration of individual variation in daily usage of the app-based tools.