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This paper examines the prevalence of multiple symptoms and the relationships between future expectations and multiple symptoms in a cross-sectional study of 100 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A questionnaire was used to examine the patients' symptoms of breathlessness, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, fatigue, and pain, and their outlook for the future. All patients reported breathlessness, 64% anxiety, 69% depression, 28% sleeplessness, 72% fatigue, and 45% pain. Those with anxiety reported significant depression ( P < 0.001), and those with fatigue reported significant depression ( P = 0.004). Patients who reported pain also reported significant sleeplessness ( P = 0.022). A negative outlook for the future was reported by 42% of patients who also reported significantly more anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, fatigue, and pain ( P ≤ 0.049). Multiple symptoms are common in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and patients with a pessimistic view of the future reported more symptoms. Those with multiple symptoms and a negative outlook toward the future may benefit from interventions to help them achieve a more positive outlook for the future, which may relieve symptom burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jøsendal, O. & Aarø, L. E. (2012). Adolescent smoking behavior and outcome expectancies. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 129-135. Adolescent smoking behavior is assumed to be associated with smoking outcome expectancies. Results in this paper are based on data from the control group of two data collections among Norwegian secondary school students taken approximately 30 months apart (T1 and T2). The dimensionality of smoking outcome expectancies was the same at both time points, revealing three components ('Addicted', 'Not harmful' and 'Social'). After correction for attenuation, the Pearson's correlation between T1 and T2 was 0.41 for the total sumscore, indicating low to moderate relative stability. When examining smoking expectancy sumscore means by smoking habits at T1 and T2, never smokers were different from smokers on both occasions. Never smokers scored low on 'Social' and 'Not harmful', and high on 'Addictive'. All associations were statistically significant ( p < 0.001). The 'Social' dimension was the strongest predictor of smoking behavior at T1 and T2. One of the outcome expectancy sumscores ('Addictive') at T1 predicted smoking habits at T2 after controlling for smoking habits at T1 ( p < 0.01). This predictor was significant also after entering outcome expectancy sumscores at T2 into the model ( p < 0.05). These results indicate that outcome expectations other than the health-related ones should be paid attention to when planning new prevention programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]