Miranda A Cary

Pain, anxiety, and negative outcome expectations for activity: do negative psychological profiles differ between the inactive and active?

Adherence to physical activity at ≥150 minutes/week has proven to offer disease management and health‐promoting benefits among adults with arthritis. While highly active people seem undaunted by arthritis pain and are differentiated from the moderately active by adherence‐related psychological factors, knowledge about inactive individuals is lacking. This knowledge may identify what to change in order to help inactive people begin and maintain physical activity. The present study examined the planned, self‐regulated activity of high, moderate, and inactive individuals to determine if differences existed in negative psychological factors.

Predicting planned physical activity of individuals with arthritis: A self-regulatory perspective.

Few individuals with arthritis are sufficiently active. We surveyed a convenience sample of exercisers (N = 134) to examine the utility of social cognitive theory variables, namely, self-regulatory efficacy, negative outcome expectations, and pain acceptance for predicting planned physical activity according to Weinstein’s two prediction suggestions. Logistic regression revealed, after controlling for pain intensity, self-regulatory efficacy, negative outcome expectations, and pain acceptance distinguished groups achieving/not achieving planned physical activity, p < 0.001 (28% variance). A second model adding past physical activity also predicted the groups, p < 0.001 (57% variance). This is one of the first arthritis studies examining planned physical activity relative to Weinstein’s recommendations.

Prediction of Adaptive Self-Regulatory Responses to Arthritis Pain Anxiety in Exercising Adults: Does Pain Acceptance Matter?

Exercise is recommended to ease arthritis pain; unfortunately, adherence to planned exercise regimens is often very low, particularly among patients with chronic pain. The authors of this study, which involved patients with arthritis who either met exercise recommendations or did not, aimed to elucidate whether pain acceptance is a moderator of the relationship between pain anxiety and self-regulatory responses with regard to exercise.

Barriers to Physical Activity Among Gay Men

Gay men may not be physically active at recommended levels to achieve health benefits. Thus, a need exists to identify general (i.e., common across populations) and population-specific barriers that hinder or stop gay men from participating in physical activity (PA). Salient barriers may be identified through the extent each barrier limits PA (i.e., barrier limitation) and the level of one’s confidence to overcome barriers and engage in PA (i.e., self-regulatory efficacy). The purposes of this study were to (1) provide a description of general and population-specific barriers to PA among sufficiently and insufficiently active gay men, (2) identify barrier limitation and self-regulatory efficacy for the reported barriers, and (3) examine the associations between meeting the current PA recommendation, barrier limitation, and self-regulatory efficacy. Participants were 108 self-identified gay males aged 21 to 64 years who completed a web-based survey. A total of 35 general barriers and no population-specific barriers were identified by the sufficiently and insufficiently active groups. The sufficiently active group reported higher self-regulatory efficacy and lower barrier limitation for nearly all reported barriers. A binary logistic regression used to examine the associations between PA, barrier limitation, and self-regulatory efficacy was statistically significant, χ2(2, N = 108) = 19.26, p < .0001, R2 = .16. Only barrier limitation significantly contributed to the model. Future research should continue to examine barriers to PA among gay men to determine whether an intervention needs to be designed specifically for gay men or whether a one-size-fits-all intervention would be effective in helping all men overcome common barriers to engaging in PA.

Self-Regulatory Efficacy Encourages Exercise Persistence Despite Arthritis Flare Symptoms

BACKGROUND The study of exercise adherence during an arthritis flare is recommended by arthritis researchers. Studies to date have been correlational. METHODS Social cognitions of exercising individuals with arthritis who consider exercise adherence under different levels of challenge of an arthritis flare were examined using an experimental design. Exercising individuals with differential self-regulatory efficacy for managing arthritis flare symptoms (SRE-flare) were randomly assigned to conditions where flare symptoms were perceived as either many or few. Individuals in each condition responded about the strength of their anticipated persistence to continue exercise, and their self-regulatory efficacy to use coping strategies to enable exercise. RESULTS Higher SRE-flare individuals expressed significantly (a) greater persistence (Cohens d = 1.17) and (b) more confidence to use their flare coping solutions (Cohens d = 1.44). CONCLUSION Main findings were as hypothesised. When exposed to the condition with more limiting flare symptoms (i.e. greater challenge), high SRE participants were the most confident in dealing with flare symptoms and exercising. Identifying lower SRE-flare individuals less likely to persist with exercise during arthritis flares may improve tailored exercise counselling.

Differences in psychosocial responses to pain between sufficiently and insufficiently active adults with arthritis

Objective: Adults with arthritis struggle to meet the physical activity recommendation for disease self-management. Identifying psychosocial factors that differentiate adults who meet (sufficiently active) or do not meet (insufficiently active) the recommendation is needed. This study sought to examine differences in psychosocial responses to arthritis pain among adults who were sufficiently or insufficiently active. Design: This prospective study included adults with medically diagnosed arthritis (N = 136, Mage = 49.75 ± 13.88 years) who completed two online surveys: (1) baseline: pain and psychosocial responses to pain and (2) two weeks later: physical activity. Main outcome measures: Psychosocial responses examined in this study were psychological flexibility in response to pain, pain anxiety and maladaptive responses to pain anxiety. Results: A between-groups MANCOVA comparing sufficiently active (n = 87) to insufficiently active (n = 49) participants on psychosocial responses, after controlling for pain intensity, was significant (p = .005). Follow-up ANOVA’s revealed that sufficiently active participants reported significantly higher psychological flexibility and used maladaptive responses less often compared to insufficiently active participants (p’s < .05). Conclusions: These findings provide preliminary insight into the psychosocial profile of adults at risk for nonadherence due to their responses to arthritis pain.