Dancers' perceptions of psychological skills

Psychological skills have been shown to influence the quality of sporting performance and the enjoyment of participation. Although dance obviously involves physical activity and places emphasis on performance it is not traditionally included in discussions of sport psychology. Before investigating the effects of a psychological skills training program on dancers, it is imperative that it is first determined which psychological skills may already be used by dancers, and which skills may be of benefit if developed further. A group of 22 dancers were interviewed to ascertain their beliefs about their own mental strengths and weaknesses, as well as what role they felt that mental skills could play in dance performance. Results indicated that whereas motivational skills were quite strong, strengthening the areas of arousal control, concentration, imagery, self-confidence, and self-talk could be beneficial. Dance may be able to provide sport psychology with a valuable domain for study which inherently focuses on performance rather than outcomeSe ha demostrado que las capacidades psicológicas tienen influencia sobre la calidad del rendimiento deportivo y el disfrute de la participación. A pesar de que la danza incluye obviamente actividad física y pone énfasis en el rendimiento, no ha sido incluida tradicionalmente en las dicusiones acerca de la psicología del deporte. Antes de investigar los efectos de un programa de entrenamiento de las capacidades psicológicas en bailarines, es imperativo que se determine que habilidades psicológicas son usadas habitualmente por los bailarines, así como que habilidades pueden ser beneficiosas si se desarrollan con posterioridad. Se entrevistó a un grupode 22 bailarines para evaluar sus creencias acerca de sus puntos fuertes y débiles mentales, así como qué papel deberían ocupar las habilidades mentales respecto a la práctica de la danza. Los resultados indicaron que mientras las habilidades motivacionales son muy importantes, puede ser beneficioso reforzar las áreas de control de la activación, la concentración, la práctica imaginada, la autoconfianza y las autoinstrucciones verbalizadas. La danza puede ser capaz de proporcionar a la psicología del deporte un dominio válido para ser estudiado, ya que se focaliza inherentemente sobre el rendimiento más que sobre el resultad

Attributions and goal orientations in masters athletes: performance versus outcome

En este estudio, 111 nadadores y 77 atletas que participaban en los Australian Master Games se evaluaron mediante el Cuestionario de Orientación a la Tarea y al Ego en el Deporte (TEOSQ) antes de su participación más importante. Dentro de los 30 mintos previos a la prueba, se les administró a los atletas el test y se les evaluaron sus atribuciones acerca de su rendimiento. Los participantes puntuaron su rendimiento más exitoso que los resultados de la prueba. Los atletas percibieron su rendimiento como más debido a causas internas e intencionales que los resultados. La orientación a la tarea predecía algunas de las puntuaciones de las atribuciones. Las respuestas al cuestionario formado por preguntas abiertas acerca de la causa más importante de su rendimiento o de su resultado se analizaron cualitativamente. Los atletas que puntuaban alto en la orientación a la tarea y bajo en la orientación al ego tendían a atribuir el rendimiento a su técnica. En cambio, las personas que puntuaban bajo en ambas orientaciones de meta mostraban signos de apatía, y llevaban a cabo pocos intentos de explicar las causas de su rendimiento o de sus resultados. Los resultados hallados apoyan la estrategia de focalización en el rendimiento más que en los resultados

Current and Future Advances in Surgical Therapy for Pituitary Adenoma

The vital physiological role of the pituitary gland, alongside its proximal critical neurovascular structures means pituitary adenomas cause significant morbidity or mortality. Whilst enormous advancements have been made in the surgical care of pituitary adenomas, treatment failure and recurrence remain challenges. To meet these clinical challenges, there has been an enormous expansion of novel medical technologies (e.g. endoscopy, advanced imaging, artificial intelligence). These innovations have the potential to benefit each step of the patient journey, and ultimately, drive improved outcomes. Earlier and more accurate diagnosis addresses this in part. Analysis of novel patient data sets, such as automated facial analysis or natural language processing of medical records holds potential in achieving an earlier diagnosis. After diagnosis, treatment decision-making and planning will benefit from radiomics and multimodal machine learning models. Surgical safety and effectiveness will be transformed by smart simulation methods for trainees. Next-generation imaging techniques and augmented reality will enhance surgical planning and intraoperative navigation. Similarly, the future armamentarium of pituitary surgeons, including advanced optical devices, smart instruments and surgical robotics, will augment the surgeon's abilities. Intraoperative support to team members will benefit from a surgical data science approach, utilising machine learning analysis of operative videos to improve patient safety and orientate team members to a common workflow. Postoperatively, early detection of individuals at risk of complications and prediction of treatment failure through neural networks of multimodal datasets will support earlier intervention, safer hospital discharge, guide follow-up and adjuvant treatment decisions. Whilst advancements in pituitary surgery hold promise to enhance the quality of care, clinicians must be the gatekeepers of technological translation, ensuring systematic assessment of risk and benefit. In doing so, the synergy between these innovations can be leveraged to drive improved outcomes for patients of the future

Changes in Acceptance in a Low-Intensity, Group-Based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Chronic Pain Intervention

Acceptance and commitment therapy has shown to be effective in chronic pain rehabilitation, and acceptance has been shown to be a key process of change. The influence of treatment dose on acceptance is not clear, and in particular, the effectiveness of a non-intensive treatment

Process analysis of the patient pathway for automated data collection: an exemplar using pituitary surgery

Introduction: Automation of routine clinical data shows promise in relieving health systems of the burden associated with manual data collection. Identifying consistent points of documentation in the electronic health record (EHR) provides salient targets to improve data entry quality. Using our pituitary surgery service as an exemplar, we aimed to demonstrate how process mapping can be used to identify reliable areas of documentation in the patient pathway to target structured data entry interventions. Materials and methods: This mixed methods study was conducted in the largest pituitary centre in the UK. Purposive snowball sampling identified frontline stakeholders for process mapping to produce a patient pathway. The final patient pathway was subsequently validated against a real-world dataset of 50 patients who underwent surgery for pituitary adenoma. Events were categorized by frequency and mapped to the patient pathway to determine critical data points. Results: Eighteen stakeholders encompassing all members of the multidisciplinary team (MDT) were consulted for process mapping. The commonest events recorded were neurosurgical ward round entries (N = 212, 14.7%), pituitary clinical nurse specialist (CNS) ward round entries (N = 88, 6.12%) and pituitary MDT treatment decisions (N = 88, 6.12%) representing critical data points. Operation notes and neurosurgical ward round entries were present for every patient. 43/44 (97.7%) had a pre-operative pituitary MDT entry, pre-operative clinic letter, a post-operative clinic letter, an admission clerking entry, a discharge summary, and a post-operative histopathology pituitary multidisciplinary (MDT) team entries. Conclusion: This is the first study to produce a validated patient pathway of patients undergoing pituitary surgery, serving as a comparison to optimise this patient pathway. We have identified salient targets for structured data entry interventions, including mandatory datapoints seen in every admission and have also identified areas to improve documentation adherence, both of which support movement towards automation

Validation of the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire-8 in an Australian pain clinic sample

Background: Recently, an 8-item short-form version of the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ-8) was developed predominantly in an internet sample. Further investigation of the factor structure in a multidisciplinary pain clinic sample is required. Investigation of the concurrent validity of the CPAQ-8 after accounting for the effects of variables commonly measured in the pain clinic setting is also necessary. Purpose: This study examines the factor structure and concurrent validity of the CPAQ-8 in a sample of treatmentseeking patients who attended a multidisciplinary pain clinic. Methods: Participants were 334 patients who attended an Australian multidisciplinary pain service. Participants completed the CPAQ, a demographic questionnaire, and measures of patient adjustment and functioning. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis identified a two-factor 8-item model consisting of Activity Engagement and Pain Willingness factors (SRMR=0.039, RMSEA=0.063, CFI=0.973, TLI=0.960) was superior to both the CPAQ and CPAQ with an item removed. The CPAQ and CPAQ-8 total scores were highly correlated (r=0.93). After accounting for pain intensity, the CPAQ-8 was a significant predictor of depression, anxiety, stress, and disability. The subscales of the CPAQ-8 were both unique contributors to depression and disability in regression analyses, after accounting for pain intensity and kinesiophobia, and after accounting for pain intensity and catastrophizing. Conclusions: The CPAQ-8 has a sound factor structure and similar psychometric properties to the CPAQ; it may have clinical utility as a measure of pain acceptance in treatmentseeking, chronic pain patients

Using psychological skills training from sport psychology to enhance the life satisfaction of adolescent Mexican orphans

In 2005 Rob Schinke contacted me to inquire if I'd be interested in contributing to a special edition of Athletic Insight that would focus on cultural sport psychology. The invitation was based on previous work I had done with Indigenous Australians, but at the time I received the Rob's email I was running an intervention program at Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) in Mexico, so I asked if that would be an appropriate focus for the article. Although I doubt he was expecting his Australian contact to write about an experience in Mexico, that is what happened (see Hanrahan, 2005). This chapter is based on that Athletic Insight manuscript, but has been extended with information from a qualitative analysis of participants' responses to open-ended questions about the program and its possible effects (data that I had not yet analysed at the time of the initial submission to Athletic Insight). Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) cares for orphaned and abandoned children in Latin America (see www.nphamigos.org for complete information). NPH was founded in 1954 in Mexico and currently has homes in nine Latin American countries. The main facility in Miacatlán, Mexico is home for almost 1000 children (referred to as pequeños rather than orphans) with approximately 200 additional older children attending the NPH vocational school in nearby Cuernavaca. It was with these older children that I spent the month of January, 2005

Using psychological skills training from sport psychology to enhance the life satisfaction of adolescent Mexican orphans

In 2005 Rob Schinke contacted me to inquire if I'd be interested in contributing to a special edition of Athletic Insight that would focus on cultural sport psychology. The invitation was based on previous work I had done with Indigenous Australians, but at the time I received the Rob's email I was running an intervention program at Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) in Mexico, so I asked if that would be an appropriate focus for the article. Although I doubt he was expecting his Australian contact to write about an experience in Mexico, that is what happened (see Hanrahan, 2005). This chapter is based on that Athletic Insight manuscript, but has been extended with information from a qualitative analysis of participants' responses to open-ended questions about the program and its possible effects (data that I had not yet analysed at the time of the initial submission to Athletic Insight). Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) cares for orphaned and abandoned children in Latin America (see www.nphamigos.org for complete information). NPH was founded in 1954 in Mexico and currently has homes in nine Latin American countries. The main facility in Miacatlán, Mexico is home for almost 1000 children (referred to as pequeños rather than orphans) with approximately 200 additional older children attending the NPH vocational school in nearby Cuernavaca. It was with these older children that I spent the month of January, 2005. A number of years ago my mother visited the home in Miacatlán and she mailed me a photograph of the children playing volleyball using a piece of string with plastic bags pinned to it as the net. Having spent 18 years of my life playing volleyball at an elite level, I felt compelled to improve their sporting equipment. Donations from friends and colleagues in Brisbane, Australia were collected and sent. A year or two later I was wondering if helping a team win a few extra games each season was really making a significant difference in the grand scheme of things. As a sport psychologist I have spent years teaching psychological skills to athletes, exercisers, and performing artists. In my undergraduate classes I often mention how psychological skills were not only beneficial for enhancing performance and enjoyment of participation, but also for learning skills useful in areas of life outside of sport. The arrival of an NPH newsletter in the mail one day caused a synergy of these different cognitions and spawned the idea of teaching psychological skills to the pequeños. For more than 20 years it has been known that participating in adventure-based/active recreation programs is superior to participating in social recreation programs in terms of creating enhanced attitudes and actions regarding cooperation and trust (e.g., Witman, 1987). It has also been demonstrated that physically active games can be used to develop skills of problem solving and decision making under pressure (Howarth, 1996). Physical activity on its own has been linked with perceived life satisfaction of high school adolescents (Valois, Zullig, Huebner, & Drane, 2004). In addition, Petlichkoff (2004) has suggested that psychological skills influence psychological well-being, particularly for children and adolescents. I believed that if underprivileged teenagers developed skills of problem solving, decision making, trust, and communication in addition to the more standard psychological skills taught in many sport psychology programs (e.g., goal setting, self talk), that their quality of life would improve. I wanted to practice what I preach to my undergraduate students by exploring the potential value of mental skills in enhancing life outside of sport. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to determine if the combination of physically active games and psychological skills could enhance the self-concept and life satisfaction of Mexican teenage orphans. Self concept was selected as one of the dependent variables because it has been considered to be one of the most important indicators of psychological adjustment (Byrne, 1996). I was not interested in measuring specific psychological skills because it was not clear to me how meaningful it would be to know that these individuals had improved their ability to set goals or to concentrate. I also was not interested in measuring sporting performance as not all of the participants competed in sport. I decided that even though there was probably a greater chance of obtaining statistically significant improvement in the knowledge or use of targeted psychological skills, it would be more meaningful to know if psychological skills training could influence self-concept or perceived life satisfaction. The intervention program I used was based on a program I developed while working at the Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts in Australia (Hanrahan, 2004). Although the two cultures (Australian Aboriginal and Mexican) are different, both groups of participants had similarities in terms of poverty and its accompanying societal disadvantages. I did not drastically change the content of the program, but I obviously translated all handouts and ran the program in Spanish. In addition, in Mexico I ran sessions separately for boys and girls, due to the potential effects of the machismo aspects of Mexican culture affecting the openness of participants. Ojeda, Rosales, and Good (2008) found that Mexican American college men held significantly more traditional (i.e., macho) attitudes toward male roles on indicators of masculinity (e.g., men should be physically tough, self-assurance in men is admirable, men should not display traits characteristic of women, it is essential for men to gain others' respect) compared to a normative sample of U.S. men. I must admit that my selection of questionnaires for the study was in part determined by finding ones that had already been psychometrically validated in Spanish