AIM This paper is a report of a study to assess the association between coronary heart disease patients' illness beliefs and their self-efficacy 3 years after hospital discharge. BACKGROUND Cardiac rehabilitation guidelines recommend that both the illness representation model and the concept of self-efficacy are relevant frameworks for developing effective psychological support, although litt...

Objective: To examine and compare the illness beliefs of South Asian and European patients with coronary heart disease about causal attributions and lifestyle change. Methods: A qualitative study that used framework analysis to examine in-depth interviews. Sample: Sixty five subjects (20 Pakistani-Muslim, 13 Indian-Hindu, 12 Indian-Sikh, and 20 Europeans) admitted to one of three UK sites withi...

Scientific naturalism is a metaphysical doctrine, a view about what there is, or what we ought to believe that there is. It maintains that natural science should be our guide in matters metaphysical: the ontology we should accept is the ontology that turns out to be required by science. Quine is often regarded as the doyen of scientific naturalists, though the supporting cast includes such gian...

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To explore the effect contact with a heart failure nurse can have on patients' illness beliefs, mood and quality of life. BACKGROUND There is growing interest in patients' illness beliefs and the part they play in a patients understanding of chronic disease. DESIGN Secondary analysis on two independent datasets. Patients were recruited from five UK hospitals, four in Lon...

Article history: Received 30 July 2012 Available online 29 November 2012 Many college students hold ambitious goals for upward social mobility via post-college careers. However, in the current economic recession such optimistic expectations are not a given. The present study examines how college students' current social status and beliefs in causal factors for socioeconomic status (SES) attainm...

It is tempting to analyse causality in terms of just one of the indicators of causal relationships, e.g., mechanisms, probabilistic dependencies or independencies, counterfactual conditionals or agency considerations. While such an analysis will surely shed light on some aspect of our concept of cause, it will fail to capture the whole, rather multifarious, notion. So one might instead plump fo...

BACKGROUND The experiences of women with severe mental illness warrant particular consideration to identify the strategies they use to facilitate recovery. This review systematically examined women's experiences of psychosis and bipolar disorder. METHODS Following an extensive database search, 13 studies met inclusion criteria. Noblit and Hare's metasynthesis approach was used to synthesise t...

Guided by a culturally informed illness representation self-regulation model (CIRSRM), this study analyzed the relations among 223 Asian Americans' lay beliefs about depression, enculturation to Asian values, and their likelihood of seeking professional help for depression. Participants' lay beliefs were assessed through an analysis of written responses to open-ended questions about depression....