Student: Nicole Dainton
Supervisor: Dr Helen Lindner

The study aimed to investigate the factors relating to non-adherent behaviours to preventive and treatment asthma medication. Specifically, the role of illness representations and coping strategies were examined in regards to subsequent appraisal outcomes. Furthermore, the study aimed to explore the additional role of medication beliefs to medication adherence. The study included a sample of 74 adult asthma sufferers, of which 26 were male and 45 female. Participants were required to complete four questionnaires; the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire-Revised (Moss-Morris et al., 2002), the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988), the Beliefs about Medication Questionnaire (Horne, Weinman & Hankins, 1999), and the Medication Adherence Report Scale (Horne & Weinman, 2002), as well as a demographics and a medical form.

Findings revealed that medication beliefs played an important role in reported asthma medication adherence, beyond that explained by illness representations. Specifically, results suggested that participants who believed their medication to be vital for their health and well-being were more likely to adhere to both their reliever and preventer medications, as personally prescribed for them. However, participants concerns about the negative effects of taking their medication were found to be unrelated to their medication adherence.

Furthermore, asthma sufferers who perceived that they had high personal control over their condition, and who believed their medication to be vital, were also more likely to take their reliever medication as prescribed for them. Other results found that an asthma sufferer who believed their condition did not carry a high degree of social, physical and psychological consequences, and who perceived their asthma to be an acute condition, rather than chronic, were more likely to deem their medication to be imperative to their health. It was also discovered that the more coherent an asthma sufferer was in understanding their condition and the less they utilized an emotion-focused style of coping, the more concerned the individual was about the negative effects of taking asthma medication.

Students: Michelle Noonan; Karen Walker
Supervisor: Dr Helen Lindner

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a poorly understood illness that is characterized by profound and prolonged exhaustion, and has no clear pathological marker. This study investigated the role of illness perceptions and secondary beliefs in depression among a CFS patient group using the A-B-C framework of Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT). In addition, this study also investigated the relationship between CFS patients’ illness perceptions, coping processes, appraisals of self management, and depression using the Self Regulatory Model of illness behaviour.

Empirical research has consistently found that many people with CFS develop concurrent depression, which often exacerbates their symptoms resulting in greater severity and functional deficits, and inhibits self management behaviours, further impeding functioning.

There were 156 participants with CFS who participated in this questionnaire based study. All participants completed a questionnaire pack, which included the revised version of the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R), Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WOCQ), the Secondary Beliefs Scale (SBS), the Self Management Appraisal Questionnaire (SMAQ), and the Cardiac Depression Scale (CDS). Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that secondary beliefs mediated the relationship between illness perceptions and depression. Specifically, the consequences and treatment control subscales of the IPQ-R and the approval and achievement subscales of the SBS were significantly associated with depression. This indicates that individuals who scored high on the depression scale perceived their illness to severely impact on their physical, social and psychological functioning, and perceive their treatment to have limited effectiveness in managing their illness. In addition, a high score on approval beliefs, which indicates a preference for short term, high social impact-related needs, and a high score on achievement beliefs, which tends to indicate a need for a clearly defined solution to any problem, were more likely to be associated with high scores on depressed. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed that coping processes were partially mediated by the perceived illness severity, the perceived consequences, and the illness coherence subscales of the IPQ-R. In addition, the coping processes of escape-avoidance, seeking social support, and positive reappraisal were directly related to depression.

The current finding provided support for the role of illness perceptions and coping processes in predicting depression in CFS, and indicated that secondary beliefs may also be important for understanding levels of depression. Targeting of particular cognitions during treatment interventions may effectively lead to lower levels of depression and better psychological and social functional outcomes for this population of chronically ill people.