The List of Competences of Clinical Psychologists as a Professional Asset

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How to Strengthen Patients' Meaning Response by an Ethical Informed Consent in Psychotherapy.

Healthcare professionals including psychotherapists are legally and ethically obliged to ensure informed consent for the provided treatments comprising type and duration or potential benefits and possible risks (e.g., side effects) among others. In the present contribution, we argue that as potential benefit, informed consent can foster the patient's meaning response. Moerman's notion of the meaning response as the physiological or psychological effects of meaning in the course and treatment of an illness is a useful concept in explaining the effects of communicating a treatment rationale as part of the informed consent procedure. The more compelling the rational explanation of the targeted treatment effects including an explanatory model and a model of unique and common change mechanisms, the stronger the meaning response is expected to be resulting in increased hope and positive expectations with regard to the treatment

Interactions of International Pilots\u27 Stress, Fatigue, Symptoms of Depression, Anxiety, Common Mental Disorders and Wellbeing

Objective This study Investigates more dimensions than previous studies simultaneously: pilots’ duty rosters, stress, sleep difficulties, fatigue levels, wellbeing, symptoms of depression, anxiety, and common mental disorders (CMD), and how they are interrelated. Background Several scientific studies have confirmed that fatigue can pose a significant risk to flight safety. Other studies reported positive depression screening results for more pilots, compared with the general population. Method A cross-sectional online survey was completed by 406 international pilots, who reported their duty rosters of the last two months. Pilots also self-assessed their stress-levels, sleep problems, fatigue, wellbeing, and mental health. Results Although pilots were on average rostered for only 60% of maximum legal duty and flight hours, three out of four pilots (76%) reported severe or high fatigue. Every fourth pilot reported considerable sleep difficulties (24%). 18.7% pilots reported positive depression screening results, 8.5% positive anxiety screenings, 7.2% reported significant symptoms of depression and anxiety. Highly significant to high correlations between stress, sleep problems, fatigue, symptoms of depression, anxiety, CMD and well-being were found. Conclusions Chronic stress appears to be linked to psychophysiological wear and tear, and was associated with higher levels of fatigue, more sleep disturbances and more impaired mental health. Future research should not only consider fatigue as an immediate threat to aviation safety, but also as a significant threat to pilots’ safety-relevant fitness to fly

Personal benefits of older adults engaging in a participatory action research (PAR) project

Participatory action research (PAR) is the process of conducting research with people rather than for them and is perceived as an empowering activity for older adults who participate in it. However, there is little evidence that outlines and explains the reasons why older adults engage in PAR. Thus, the aim of this study was to better understand the personal benefits for older adults participating in PAR. We based our study on the experiences of four older adults who volunteered for CareComLabs, a Swiss-based PAR project, for more than two years. A constructivist grounded theory design was used to explore the benefits of participating in CareComLabs by conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The analysis yielded four categories of personal benefits of participating in CareComLabs: (a) enriching relationships; (b) broadening horizons for older age; (c) keeping in touch with one's profession; and (d) interacting in a nurturing community. Our findings may have implications for policies and frameworks focused on the identification of the potential of participatory action research as a community resource

Psychological skills training and a mindfulness-based intervention to enhance functional athletic performance: design of a randomized controlled trial using ambulatory assessment

Background: Struggling to deliver performance in competitions is one of the main reasons why athletes seek the advice of sport psychologists. Psychologists apply a variety of intervention techniques, many of which are not evidence-based. Evidence-based techniques promote quality management and could help athletes, for example, to increase and maintain functional athletic behavior in competitions/games (i.e., being focused on task relevant cues and executing movements and actions in high quality). However, well-designed trials investigating the effectiveness of sport psychological interventions for performance enhancement are scarce. The planed study is founded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and examines the effectiveness of two interventions with elite and sub-elite athletes. A psychological skills training (PST) and a mindfulness-based intervention (MI), administered as group-program, will be compared to a waiting-list control group concerning how they enhance functional athletic behavior - which is a prerequisite for optimal performance. Furthermore, we will investigate underlying mechanisms (mediators) and moderators (e.g., task difficulty, individual characteristics, intervention-expectancy and intervention-integrity). Methods/design: The presented trial uses a randomized controlled design with three groups, comparing PST, MI and a waiting list control condition. Both group interventions will last 5 weeks, consist of four 2 h sessions and will be administered by a trained sport psychologist. Primary outcome is functional athletic behavior assessed using ambulatory assessment in a competition/game. As secondary outcomes competition anxiety, cognitive interference and negative outcome expectations will be assessed. Assessments are held at pre- and post-intervention as well as at 2 months follow up. The study has been approved by the ethical committee of the Swiss Federal Institute of Sport. Discussion: Both PST and MI are expected to help improve functional behavior in athletes. By examining potential mechanisms of change and moderators of outcome we will not only be able to answer the question whether the interventions work, but also how, under what conditions, and for whom. This study may also fill a gap in sport psychology research, considering the current lack of randomized controlled trials. In the future, researchers could use the presented study protocol as template to investigate similar topics in sport psychology

Personal benefits of older adults engaging in a participatory action research (PAR) project.

Participatory action research (PAR) is the process of conducting research with people rather than for them and is perceived as an empowering activity for older adults who participate in it. However, there is little evidence that outlines and explains the reasons why older adults engage in PAR. Thus, the aim of this study was to better understand the personal benefits for older adults participating in PAR. We based our study on the experiences of four older adults who volunteered for CareComLabs, a Swiss-based PAR project, for more than two years. A constructivist grounded theory design was used to explore the benefits of participating in CareComLabs by conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The analysis yielded four categories of personal benefits of participating in CareComLabs: (a) enriching relationships; (b) broadening horizons for older age; (c) keeping in touch with one's profession; and (d) interacting in a nurturing community. Our findings may have implications for policies and frameworks focused on the identification of the potential of participatory action research as a community resource

Mindfulness Promotes the Ability to Deliver Performance in Highly Demanding Situations

Trait mindfulness helps people handle distress and improves their satisfaction with life. The aim of the present paper is to examine whether trait mindfulness also promotes positive functioning (i.e., performance) in highly demanding situations, such as in elite sports. Mindfulness has been shown to improve athletes’ ability to perform well, i.e., to increase their performance-delivery. However, researchers are still speculating about the underlying mechanism. The present research examines whether trait mindfulness enhances the ability of elite athletes to trigger performance in demanding situations by generally reducing competition anxiety and diminishing its negative impact when it occurs. Participants were 133 elite athletes from 23 different sports. They completed measures of trait mindfulness, competition anxiety, and performance-delivery. Mediation, moderation, and moderated-mediation effects of mindfulness and competition anxiety on performance-delivery were tested. Our findings indicate that trait mindfulness is related to fewer performance worries and prevents the remaining worries from influencing athletes’ behavior, thereby helping them to perform better. Implications and directions for further research are discussed. Apart from benefits for psychological health, instructing people to become more mindful might be a promising approach to help them optimize their performance in demanding situations