Psychological interventions for the prevention and management of lifestyle-related chronic disease

The Australian Government's current health reform agenda provides a timely opportunity to highlight the contribution of health psychology interventions in the prevention and management of chronic diseases associated with lifestyle risk factors. The World Health Organisation (2009) has identified the main risk factors responsible for deaths internationally as high blood pressure (responsible for 13% of deaths), tobacco use (9%), high blood sugar (6%), physical inactivity (6%), overweight and obesity (5%), high cholesterol (5%), unsafe sex (4%) and alcohol use (4%). A number of these factors also increase the risk of major chronic diseases - cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancers. There is now a substantial evidence base for the effectiveness of health improvement interventions based on psychological theory, research and practice and hence they deserve a high level of recognition within systems for funding health. This article presents a summary of a systematic review of the evidence for the effectiveness of health psychology interventions in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases associated with lifestyle risk factors.

Effects of parental perception of neighbourhood deprivation and family environment characteristics on pro-social behaviours among 4-12 year old children

Objective : To assess the effect family environment stressors (e.g. poor family functioning and parental psychological distress) and neighbourhood environment on child prosocial behaviour (CPB) and child difficulty behaviour (CDB) among 4-to-12 year old children.

Methods : Analysis of the 2006 Victorian Child Health and Wellbeing Survey (VCHWS) dataset derived from a statewide cross-sectional telephone survey, with a final total sample of 3,370 children.

Results : Only family functioning, parental psychological distress, child gender, and age were associated with CPB, explaining a total of 8% of the variance. Children from healthily functioning families and of parents without any psychological distress exhibited greater prosocial behaviours than those from poorly functioning families and of parents with mental health problems. Neighbourhood environment was not found to contribute to CPB. A total of eight variables were found to predict CDB, explaining a total of 16% of the variance. Poor family and parental psychological functioning as well as poor access to public facilities in the neighbourhood were associated with conduct problems in children.

Conclusion : Our results point to the importance of the family environment in providing a context that fosters the development of empathic, caring and responsible children; and in buffering children in exhibiting behaviour difficulties during the formative years of life. Programs aimed at promoting prosocial behaviours in children need to target stressors on the family environment.

The development and validation of a psychological contract of safety scale

Introduction
This paper builds on previous research by the author and describes the development and validation of a new measure of the psychological contract of safety. The psychological contract of safety is defined as the beliefs of individuals about reciprocal safety obligations inferred from implicit and explicit promises.

Method
A psychological contract is established when an individual believes that perceived employer and employee safety obligations are contingent on each other. A pilot test of the measure is first undertaken with participants from three different occupations: nurses, construction workers, and meat processing workers (N = 99). Item analysis is used to refine the measure and provide initial validation of the scale. A larger validation study is then conducted with a participant sample of health care workers (N = 424) to further refine the measure and to determine the psychometric properties of the scale.

Results
Item and correlational analyses produced the final employer and employee obligations scales, consisting of 21 and 17 items, respectively. Factor analyses identified two underlying dimensions in each scale comparable to that previously established in the organizational literature. These transactional and relational-type obligations provided construct validity of the scale. Internal consistency ratings using Cronbach's alpha found the components of the psychological contract of safety measure to be reliable.

Impact on Industry
The refined and validated psychological contract of safety measure will allow investigation of the positive and negative outcomes associated with fulfilment and breach of the psychological contract of safety in future research.

Perceived control and subjective wellbeing in older adults

Across age, the ability to accept what cannot be changed increases while feelings of control remain stable. The growth of acceptance preserves, rather than compensates for, older adults' sense of being in control. In later life, acceptance and control appear to operate together to maintain wellbeing. The professional portfolio uses four case studies to illustrate how Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) programs can be reinterpreted through and Acceptance and Committment Therapy (ACT) framework and elements of both employed within a single therapeutic program.

Videoconferenced and face-to-face psychological supervision

Behavioural measures confirmed a greater teaching focus in early videoconferenced sessions, while speech style was consistently less interactive, compared with face-to-face. Overall supervision relationships felt closer in person, but some participants preferred the protection of distance. A positive attitude facilitated adaption to the videoconferencing modality for effective supervision.

The role of positive irrational beliefs in mental health & wellbeing

This research found that positive irrational beliefs can be separated into distinct categories. These categories only had weak power for explaining aspects of mental health, including emotional state, satisfaction with life, and self-esteem. The direction of these relationships also varied according to the specific positive irrational beliefs being examined. The portfolio presents four case studies to examine the importance of a biopsychosocial model of health and concludes that all health professionals need an understanding of the potential interactions impacting on individuals' experiences with particular conditions.

Subjective wellbeing and families : issues of measurement and data interpretation

Since April 2001 we have been monitoring the Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) of the Australian population using the Personal Wellbeing Index. Our aims are to establish normative values and to identify people with abnormally low SWB. Each of 18 surveys has involved a new sample of 2,000 people, randomly chosen but representing the geographical distribution of the population. The data are remarkable for their stability, with the variation in population mean scores being just 3.2 percentage points. The cause of such high reliability is Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis. Here, in a manner analogous to the management of body temperature, the SWB for each person is normally held positive and within a narrow set-point range. However, all homeostatic systems have a limited capacity to absorb challenge and when aversive experiences are both strong and sustained, homeostasis fails. If this occurs, people lose their normal positive view of themselves and become depressed. Therefore, the second aim of these studies is to reveal the demographic character of families in distress, who are in need of additional resources. Our data reveal the extent to which family structure and responsibilities impact on wellbeing. They also yield important diagnostic information about individuals, and point to SWB as a crucial measure of intervention outcome. In sum, the Personal Wellbeing Index is a simple, reliable and valid measure of SWB. The measures it yields are theoretically embedded, they can be compared against solid normative data, and their interpretation is enhanced through an understanding of SWB homeostasis.