Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Social cognitive mediators of the effect of the MobileMums intervention on physical activity.
To explore whether improvements in physical activity following the MobileMums intervention were mediated by changes in Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) constructs targeted in the intervention (barrier self efficacy, goal setting skills, outcome expectancy, social support, and perceived environmental opportunity for exercise). This paper also examined if the mediating constructs differed between initial (baseline to 6 weeks) and overall (baseline to 13 weeks) changes in physical activity. ⋯ Future interventions with postnatal women using SCT should target barrier self-efficacy and goal setting skills in order to increase physical activity.
-
Acceptance and mindfulness-based treatments for chronic pain attempts to alter the impact of pain-related thoughts and feelings on behavior without necessarily changing the thoughts and feelings themselves. A process called "decentering" appears relevant to these treatments because it includes the capacity to observe thoughts and feelings from a detached perspective, as transient events in the mind, that do not necessarily reflect reality or the self. This study examines relations of decentering with other processes related to "psychological flexibility" and the daily functioning of people with chronic pain. ⋯ People with chronic pain may benefit from the capacity to contact their thoughts and feelings from a perspective as a "separate observer," to see them as transient, and to experience them as cognitively "defused."