PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Irrational health beliefs linked to skipping cardiac rehab sessions

Education about medical evidence could help patients stick to the program

2014-04-14
(Press-News.org) COLUMBUS, Ohio – Heart patients with beliefs about health that aren't based on medical evidence are more likely to skip sessions of cardiac rehabilitation, new research suggests.

In the Ohio State University study, a higher number of these beliefs – referred to as "irrational health beliefs" on a standard measure of these thoughts – was associated with lower adherence to a prescribed cardiac rehab program.

Among the irrational beliefs assessed: Doubting the preventive power of the flu vaccine or believing, based on family history alone, that it's safe to smoke cigarettes and carry excess weight after a doctor's warning about health risks linked to these behaviors.

Beyond these beliefs, a few demographic factors influenced adherence to a rehabilitation program. On average, older participants and those with higher incomes attended a higher percentage of sessions, while African Americans, on average, attended a smaller percentage of sessions than did whites.

Among those factors, African-American patients were more likely than white participants to have a higher number of irrational health beliefs.

"These beliefs about health haven't been looked at in a cardiac population before," said Charles Emery, professor of psychology at Ohio State and senior author of the study.

"Most patients referred to cardiac rehab have been sedentary. Though they are in a supportive environment, exercise is still not necessarily pleasant and can be painful from time to time. So it's important to examine factors that might negatively influence them and then intervene to address those factors – in this case, their irrational health beliefs."

Emery conducted the research with Derek Anderson, lead author and a doctoral candidate in psychology at Ohio State. The study is scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Health Psychology, and is currently available online.

Improving adherence to a rehabilitation program is critical, Emery said, because cardiac rehab already has strikes against it: Only about a third of eligible patients enter rehabilitation for a variety of reasons, including a low referral rate by cardiologists, insurance limitations and responsibilities at home and work. This is despite the fact that cardiac rehabilitation lowers the risk of a future heart problem by slowing the progression of disease, according to the American Heart Association.

"In terms of intervening, this study would point the finger at irrational health beliefs as one relevant target. Providing more education and evidence-based medical information to these patients may help enhance adherence," said Emery, also a professor of internal medicine and investigator in Ohio State's Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research.

The study had a relatively small sample size – 61 participants – but had typical demographics for a cardiac rehab program: A majority (70.5 percent) were men and the group's average age was almost 60. However, 23 percent of participants were African American, which is a relatively large proportion for studies in this area.

Almost all patients were prescribed a typical 36-session rehab program, with exercise three times per week for one hour plus an hour a week of education about nutrition, stress management and smoking cessation.

Before the first rehab session, participants completed questionnaires measuring depression and irrational health beliefs. The Irrational Health Belief Scale contains 20 vignettes describing a health-related experience in which a narrator makes distorted or illogical assumptions about health. Respondents are asked to rate each item on a scale of 1 ("not at all like I would think") to 5 ("almost exactly like I would think").

Overall, participants completed, on average, almost 75 percent of sessions approved by their insurance providers. A higher percentage of exercise session completion was associated with higher income and older age, but African-American patients completed a lower percentage of sessions than did white patients.

Gender, marital status and employment status had no effect on rehab adherence. Though researchers predicted that more education would be linked to fewer irrational health beliefs, that relationship did not pan out.

Though the study could not explain why African Americans were more likely among this group to have irrational health beliefs, Emery suggested that experience with doctors and hospitals could play a role.

"Exposure to the health care system is likely to increase someone's knowledge of medicine, and therefore irrational health beliefs should decrease with more exposure. And good population data suggest that African Americans underutilize health care for various reasons, so that could be one reason for the observed racial difference," he said.

The study also showed that depression was not linked to lower adherence to the rehab program, countering Emery's previous findings that depression was related to poor rehab adherence.

"That was unexpected, to find that depression wasn't related to adherence," Anderson said. "But we did find that patients with more depressive symptoms were also more likely to have irrational health beliefs."

Emery and Anderson suggested that the data support a closer look into irrational health beliefs, and how they might influence such health behaviors as diet, smoking and alcohol use in cardiac patients and in others with chronic health problems. Anderson is currently continuing this work by examining factors that affect behavior after cardiac rehab is finished.

INFORMATION: Charles Emery, (614) 688-3061; Emery.33@osu.edu

Written by Emily Caldwell, (614) 292-8310; Caldwell.151@osu.edu


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Three new species of yellow-shouldered bats discovered in museum collections

2014-04-14
Scientists at Chicago's Field Museum and international collaborators have reconstructed the phylogeny and biological history for the Yellow-shouldered bats in the New World tropics, the region of the Earth surrounding the equator. In-depth analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences uncovered three species new to science, each having previously been confused with another species. Since 1960, when modern studies on this group began, Sturnira has grown from eight species to 22. The newest additions were described in a new study, published online in ZooKeys. The ...

Ex vivo efficacy of C1s antibody as Complement inhibitor in cold agglutinin disease

2014-04-14
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--True North Therapeutics, Inc., announced today a publication demonstrating that the company's C1s antibody prevents the destruction of human red blood cells exposed to plasma samples of patients with a type of autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA). The article entitled "TNT003, an inhibitor of the serine protease C1s, prevents complement activation induced by cold agglutinin disease patient autoantibodies" was published on-line in the journal Blood earlier this month. TNT003 is the murine analog of True North's lead humanized monoclonal antibody ...

Neuroscientists: Brain activity may mark the beginning of memories

2014-04-14
By tracking brain activity when an animal stops to look around its environment, neuroscientists at the Johns Hopkins University believe they can mark the birth of a memory. Using lab rats on a circular track, James Knierim, professor of neuroscience in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins, and a team of brain scientists noticed that the rats frequently paused to inspect their environment with head movements as they ran. The scientists found that this behavior activated a place cell in their brain, which helps the animal construct a cognitive map, ...

Piezotronics and piezo-phototronics leading to unprecedented active electronics and optoelectronics

Piezotronics and piezo-phototronics leading to unprecedented active electronics and optoelectronics
2014-04-14
New technologies for developing electronics and optoelectronics with tunable/adaptive functionalities and performance are critical to emerging applications in wearable technology, communication, pervasive computing, human-machine interfacing and biomedical diagnostics, in which the active and adaptive interactions between devices and stimuli from the ambient/host (e. g. human body) are essential. Mechanical stimuli are ubiquitous and abundant in the environment for interacting with or controlling these electronics/optoelectronics. This is, however, not facile to implement ...

Quantum manipulation: Filling the gap between quantum and classical world

Quantum manipulation: Filling the gap between quantum and classical world
2014-04-14
Quantum superposition is a fundamental and also intriguing property of the quantum world. Because of superposition, a quantum system can be in two different states simultaneously, like a cat that can be both "dead" and "alive" at the same time. However, this anti-intuitive phenomenon cannot be observed directly, because whenever a classical measuring tool touches a quantum system, it immediately collapse into a classical state. On the other hand, quantum superposition is also the core of quantum computer's enormous computational power. A quantum computer can easily break ...

New Commission study identifies Europe's top ICT hubs

2014-04-14
Wondering what makes an ICT hotspot? Take a look at Munich, London, Paris or smaller cities such as Darmstadt identified in a new EU Atlas of ICT hotspots. This atlas shows where digital technologies thrive and examines the factors contributing to this success. Most of Europe's ICT activity takes place in 34 regions across 12 countries (listed in the Annex). Key ingredients to success included access to top Universities and research centres and funding opportunities such as venture capital. European Commission Vice-President @NeelieKroesEU said: "This is proof that ...

Climate change: The role of oceanic carbon reservoir over glacial cycles

Climate change: The role of oceanic carbon reservoir over glacial cycles
2014-04-14
Glacial cycles at 104-yr time scale have been the focus of Quaternary paleoclimatology over the last century. In recent years with the emergence of continuous high-resolution records (ice cores, deep-sea sediments etc.) from the longer geological past, increasing evidence underscores the significance of long- duration processes at the time scale of 105-yr or more. WANG Pinxian and colleagues from the State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, reviewed long-term variations in the oceanic carbon reservoir and indicated their crucial role in major climate regime ...

Genetically modified tobacco plants as an alternative for producing bioethanol

2014-04-14
Tobacco, a high-density crop which is mown several times throughout its cycle, can produce as much as 160 tonnes of fresh matter per hectare and become a source of biomass suitable for producing bioethanol. As Jon Veramendi, head of the plant Agrobiotechnology research group, explained, "tobacco plants as a source of biomass for producing bioethanol could be an alternative to traditional tobacco growing which is in decline in the USA and in Europe because it cannot compete with emerging countries like China". In the course of the research, which has been echoed by the ...

Puget Sound's rich waters supplied by deep, turbulent canyon

Puget Sounds rich waters supplied by deep, turbulent canyon
2014-04-14
The headwaters for Puget Sound's famously rich waters lie far below the surface, in a submarine canyon that draws nutrient-rich water up from the deep ocean. New measurements may explain how the Pacific Northwest's inland waters are able to support so many shellfish, salmon runs and even the occasional pod of whales. University of Washington oceanographers made the first detailed measurements at the headwater's source, a submarine canyon offshore from the strait that separates the U.S. and Canada. Observations show water surging up through the canyon and mixing at surprisingly ...

Study links domestic abuse to mental health problems in new mothers

2014-04-14
A new study shows that domestic abuse is closely linked to postpartum mental health problems, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in mothers. The research also found that specific types of abuse are associated with specific mental health problems. The work was done by researchers at North Carolina State University, Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia. "We wanted to see whether and how intimate partner abuse – physical, psychological and sexual – influenced postpartum mental health in women, including problems such ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Plant doctor: An AI system that watches over urban trees without touching a leaf

Study tracks chromium chemistry in irradiated molten salts

Scientists: the beautiful game is a silver bullet for global health

Being physically active, even just a couple of days a week, may be key to better health

High-fat diet promote breast cancer metastasis in animal models

A router for photons

Nurses and AI collaborate to save lives, reduce hospital stays

Multi-resistance in bacteria predicted by AI model

Tinker Tots: A citizen science project to explore ethical dilemmas in embryo selection

Sensing sickness

Cost to build multifamily housing in California more than twice as high as in Texas

Program takes aim at drinking, unsafe sex, and sexual assault on college campuses

Inability to pay for healthcare reaches record high in U.S.

Science ‘storytelling’ urgently needed amid climate and biodiversity crisis

KAIST Develops Retinal Therapy to Restore Lost Vision​

Adipocyte-hepatocyte signaling mechanism uncovered in endoplasmic reticulum stress response

Mammals were adapting from life in the trees to living on the ground before dinosaur-killing asteroid

Low LDL cholesterol levels linked to reduced risk of dementia

Thickening of the eye’s retina associated with greater risk and severity of postoperative delirium in older patients

Almost one in ten people surveyed report having been harmed by the NHS in the last three years

Enhancing light control with complex frequency excitations

New research finds novel drug target for acute myeloid leukemia, bringing hope for cancer patients

New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans

Illuminating single atoms for sustainable propylene production

New study finds Rocky Mountain snow contamination

Study examines lactation in critically ill patients

UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West earns AIMBE’s 2025 Pierre Galletti Award

Doubling down on metasurfaces

New Cedars-Sinai study shows how specialized diet can improve gut disorders

Making moves and hitting the breaks: Owl journeys surprise researchers in western Montana

[Press-News.org] Irrational health beliefs linked to skipping cardiac rehab sessions
Education about medical evidence could help patients stick to the program