Antonia Paschali

Accelerometer feedback to promote physical activity in adults with type 2 diabetes: a pilot study.

This study examined whether giving activity feedback to obese, sedentary adults with Type 2 diabetes would improve their adherence to a home-based walking program. 49 subjects were recruited. Ten failed a treadmill cardiovascular test. Another 9 dropped out before the intervention, and 4 dropped out during the intervention. The remaining 26 adults (14 women, 12 men; age M = 48.1 yr., SD = 7.1) received behavioral counseling monthly for 3 mo. regarding exercise. All subjects wore a triaxial accelerometer during these 3 months. Randomly, half of the subjects were blind to the data from the accelerometers, i.e., no feedback, and had counseling based on their self-report diaries. The other half had access to the accelerometer data, got a computerized graph of their physical activity for the period between counseling sessions, and had counseling based on these objective data, i.e., feedback. The feedback group showed an increase in exercise over the 3 mo. The nonfeedback group showed an increase in activity at 1.5 mo. but reverted to their baseline exercise levels at 3 mo. However, analysis of variance showed there was at least an 8% probability that this effect was due to chance, so the hypothesis that feedback would improve exercise adherence could not be supported. Further studies with larger sample sizes and greater control of experimental conditions are needed to determine the utility of objective activity feedback.

Stress and life satisfaction among university students-a pilot study

BackgroundLife satisfaction has been described as an overall cogni-tive assessment of one’s quality of life. This assessmentis based on how people believe their life should be inrelation to how it is. Anxiety has a negative impact onwell-being and life satisfaction seems to be highlyrelated with life satisfaction among University students.Studies have supported that lower levels of life satisfac-tion have been related to high anxiety.Materials and methodsThe study involved 200 University students, sampletaken from the National and Kapodistrian University ofAthens and the Xarokopion University (100 1st year and100 4th year). Subjects were asked to complete theSTAI-State & Trait Inventory and Life SatisfactionIndex. The questionnaires were given to students tocomplete during their Fall and Spring semester studies.ResultsThe mean ± standard deviation of the“life satisfactionscore” was 4.3 ± 0.5. Moreover, the majority of partici-pants (63.4%) were found to have low“life satisfaction”without any differences between the two sexes. Analysisof STAI showed that students low scores in STATEanxiety scale have high scores in life satisfaction scalewhereas high scores have low scores in life satisfaction(p = 0.005). Furthermore Trait Anxiety score analysisrevealed non significant results. Treating the life satis-faction score as a continuous variable, it was found thatthe mean score (4.2 ± 0.4) of students of the 1st yearwas statistically significantly lower compared to studentsofthe4thyear(4.4±0.6,p=0.005).Two-wayANOVAshowed that the two-way interaction between the yearand students’ sex (p < 0.001), state of anxiety (p =0.034), were statistically significant.ConclusionsAccording to the results of this study it can be sug-gested that students who have low anxiety scores havemore life satisfaction. The fact that significant differ-ences were found for the State condition and not theTrait could be explained by the perception and evalua-tion of the individual. Determining the relationshipbetween anxiety and life satisfaction inthe universitystudents could assist psychological counseling andguidance.

Maladaptive health beliefs, illness-related self-regulation and the role of the information provided by physicians:

This prospective study in 119 patients with cardiovascular diseases aimed to examine whether (a) illness representations mediate the relation of general maladaptive health beliefs to patients’ coping behaviours and (b) these relations are moderated by the patients’ perception of the amount of information provided by their physicians. Personal control and illness coherence mediated the relation of maladaptive health beliefs to coping behaviour. The amount of the provided information buffered the negative relation of maladaptive health beliefs to illness representations and coping. Thus, the detrimental effect of general maladaptive health beliefs may be counterbalanced by the amount of information provided by physicians.

A cognitive-behavior therapy applied to a social anxiety disorder and a specific phobia, case study

George, a 23-year-old Greek student, was referred by a psychiatrist for treatment to a University Counseling Centre in Athens. He was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and specific phobia situational type. He was complaining of panic attacks and severe symptoms of anxiety. These symptoms were triggered when in certain social situations and also when travelling by plane, driving a car and visiting tall buildings or high places. His symptoms lead him to avoid finding himself in such situations, to the point that it had affected his daily life. George was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and with specific phobia, situational type (in this case acrophobia) and was given 20 individual sessions of cognitivebehavior therapy. Following therapy, and follow-up occurring one month post treatment, George no longer met the criteria for social phobia and symptoms leading to acrophobia were reduced. He demonstrated improvements in many areas including driving a car in and out of Athens and visiting tall buildings.

Changes in Health Perceptions after Exposure to Human Suffering: Using Discrete Emotions to Understand Underlying Processes

Background The aim of this study was to examine whether exposure to human suffering is associated with negative changes in perceptions about personal health. We further examined the relation of possible health perception changes, to changes in five discrete emotions (i.e., fear, guilt, hostility/anger, and joviality), as a guide to understand the processes underlying health perception changes, provided that each emotion conveys information regarding triggering conditions. Methodology/Findings An experimental group (N = 47) was exposed to images of human affliction, whereas a control group (N = 47) was exposed to relaxing images. Participants in the experimental group reported more health anxiety and health value, as well as lower health-related optimism and internal health locus of control, in comparison to participants exposed to relaxing images. They also reported more fear, guilt, hostility and sadness, as well as less joviality. Changes in each health perception were related to changes in particular emotions. Conclusion These findings imply that health perceptions are shaped in a constant dialogue with the representations about the broader world. Furthermore, it seems that the core of health perception changes lies in the acceptance that personal well-being is subject to several potential threats, as well as that people cannot fully control many of the factors the determine their own well-being.