Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Relaxation training and written emotional disclosure for tension or migraine headaches: a randomized, controlled trial.
Behavioral medicine interventions that directly reduce arousal and negative emotions, such as relaxation training (RT), are conceptually different from interventions that temporarily increase negative emotions, such as written emotional disclosure (WED), but no studies have directly compared their efficacy. We compared the effects of RT and WED on people with tension or migraine headaches. ⋯ A brief RT protocol was effective for tension headaches, but WED had no effect on health status for either tension or migraine headaches. Modifications to WED, such as targeting people with unresolved stress, providing guidance to enhance the potency of the writing, or including additional at-home writing and exposure exercises, may improve its efficacy for people with headaches and other health problems.
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Although evidence suggests that survivors and spousal caregivers tend to experience somewhat similar levels of distress and that the survivor's distress affects his/her own quality of life, the degree to which each person's distress has an independent effect on their partner's quality of life is unknown. Thus, this study aimed to examine the dyadic effects of psychological distress on the quality of life of couples dealing with cancer. ⋯ Our systematic investigation provided valuable evidence for identifying the subgroup of cancer survivors and their spouses who are vulnerable to poor quality of life due to their mutual psychological distress. These findings suggest that couples may benefit from interventions that enhance their ability to manage psychological distress, particularly the wife's, which may improve the mental and physical health of both partners when they are dealing with cancer.
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The adverse consequences of burn injuries include pain and psychological distress, which show bidirectional associations. However, much of the existing research has relied on global measures of distress that do not separate distinct symptoms of anxiety and depression. ⋯ These findings suggest potentially distinct effects of depression and anxiety and imply that assessment and early treatment of both depressive and anxiety symptoms may help improve a broad range of long-term pain-related outcomes following burn injury.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Anger management style moderates effects of emotion suppression during initial stress on pain and cardiovascular responses during subsequent pain-induction.
Suppression of emotion, anger in particular, may be linked to heightened pain intensity during a subsequent painful event, but it is not clear whether an individual's anger management style (trait anger-out or trait anger-in) moderates effects on pain intensity and cardiovascular responses during pain. ⋯ A mismatch situation may apply for high anger-out people who suppress emotion in a certain circumstance and thus may suffer greater discomfort and physiological responsiveness to subsequent pain than high anger-out people not having to suppress.
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Chronic pain is often intractable despite advanced medical and psychotherapeutic treatments. Pain acceptance is emerging as a promising complement to control-based pain management strategies and a likely approach to maintaining quality of life for chronic pain patients. ⋯ These findings suggest that pain patients with greater capacity to accept pain may be emotionally resilient in managing their condition.