The RCA programme enhanced knowledge of RCA, and participants valued the programme, but further personal development and organisational support are required to achieve continued improvement in practice and sustained organisational learning.
Objectives. To investigate whether poor psychological status predicts shorter survival, faster progress of disease and greater disability in patients with ALS/MND (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/motor neurone disease). Design. A prospective study of mood as a predictor of 6‐month outcome in a consecutive cohort of patients with ALS/MND. Methods. A cohort of 38 consecutive patients completed mood, self‐esteem, wellbeing and disability measures at the time of diagnosis and 6 weeks later. Survival and disability were assessed at 6 months. Results. The 10 patients who died had poorer overall mood at the 6‐week interviews. Low mood early in disease also predicted greater disability at 6 months. The poor outcomes of patients with poor psychological well‐being were not due to confounding associations between mood and disease severity. Conclusions. The data confirm McDonald, Weidenfeld, Hillel, Carpenter & Walter's (1994) finding that poor psychological status predicts poor survival in ALS/MND. This study also extend their findings by (a) recruiting patients at the point of diagnosis and therefore controlling for effects due to the duration of disease, and (b) demonstrating that mood also predicts disease progression and disability. The findings are unlikely to be due to simple spurious association of the psychological status measures with recognized indices of disease or of expected survival. Explanations for the results can be considered in the context of other findings of mood predicting outcomes of life‐threatening disease and the possible value of psychological interventions may be considered.
Although there is good evidence that cardiac rehabilitation is effective in improving health outcomes, little is known about the psychological changes that may contribute to these outcomes. This study describes changes in cognition, emotion, behaviour, and health following cardiac rehabilitation and investigates predictors of health outcome and healthy behaviour. Sixty-two people were followed up 2 months after the end of a cardiac rehabilitation programme and 29 people were followed up for 8 months. Compared with before the programme, patients showed increased perceived control over their illness, more confidence in their ability to change their eating habits, and decreased anxiety and depression at both 2 and 8 months after the end of the programme. The increase in perceived control, predicted anxiety and depression 2 months after the course and increased confidence in change predicted better mental health 8 months after. The decrease in depression predicted lower anxiety at 8 weeks and lower anxiety, depression and better mental health at 8 months. The decrease in anxiety predicted lower depression at 8 weeks and lower anxiety, depression, and a trend towards better physical health at 8 months. These results suggest that changing health cognitions after myocardial infarction may reduce distress and this may have long-term benefits for physical health.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.