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Background: Care partners provide essential care to those with multiple sclerosis (MS). Dyadic interventions promoting health behaviours have wide-reaching benefits for individuals with MS and their care partners. However, behavioural interventions to promote physical activity in patient-caregiver dyads have yet to be explored in an MS-specific context. This study examined the secondary outcomes of the "Physical Activity Together for Multiple Sclerosis (PAT-MS)" intervention, including dyadic adjustment, caregiving tasks, caregiver quality of life, coping, and MS impact in MS dyads., Methods: A randomized controlled feasibility trial of the 12-week behavioural PAT-MS intervention. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Caregiving Tasks in MS Scale, Caregiver Quality of Life in MS Scale, Coping with MS Caregiving Inventory, and MS Impact Scale measured secondary outcomes of interest. Mixed-model ANOVAs were used to test changes in variables between groups (PAT-MS vs wait-list control) over time., Results: 20 participants, including 10 people with MS (51.4 ± 10.1 years old; median patient-determined disease steps (PDDS) score= 4, IQR= 1.25) and 10 care partners (48.5 ± 12.1 years old) were recruited and randomized. There was no statistically significant effect of the intervention on any of the secondary outcomes (p= 0.67-1.00). However, large effect sizes and condition-by-time interaction effects indicated improvement in dyadic adjustment (d= 1.03, η p 2 = 0.45), the criticism-coercion coping subscale (d= -0.93, η p 2 = 0.49), and caregiving tasks (d= 1.05, η p 2 = 0.52), specifically within psycho-emotional (d= 1.47, η p 2 = 0.38) and socio-practical (d= 1.10, η p 2 =0.37) sub-domains of caregiving tasks after the PAT-MS intervention compared to the wait-list condition., Conclusion: While this pilot feasibility study was not powered based on the secondary outcomes herein, our findings indicate improvement in dyadic adjustment and emotional and social caregiving tasks, with reduced reliance on criticism-coercion coping in the PAT-MS group compared to controls following the intervention. Findings indicate that PAT-MS may improve dyadic psychosocial well-being of people with moderate-to-severe MS and their care partners, and this should be examined next in a fully-powered study., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest with the associated manuscript., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: The objective of this scoping review is to map the literature on how usability is considered during the design and/or evaluation of computer-based digital health technologies for family caregivers of persons with chronic progressive conditions., Introduction: Computer-based digital health technologies offer convenient alternatives for delivering interventions to caregivers of people with chronic progressive conditions. Usability is a critical component of good practice in developing and implementing health and social care technologies; however, we need to determine whether usability is incorporated in the design and/or evaluation of computer-based digital health technologies for caregivers of people with chronic progressive conditions. Within this context, a broad overview of the existing literature on usability in computer-based digital health technologies is needed., Inclusion Criteria: We will include studies published from 2012 to the present that describe usability characteristics of computer-based digital health technologies targeting adult (≥18 years old) family caregivers of people with chronic progressive conditions, regardless of study design or setting., Methods: We will use the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. We will conduct searches of MEDLINE (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), and Web of Science Core Collection to capture eligible studies. After the results are deduplicated, 2 independent reviewers will assess each study for eligibility and extract data from the included studies. Conflicts will be resolved through discussion or with a third reviewer. Data analysis will use a textual narrative synthesis approach., Review Registration: Open Science Framework osf.io/w4vk5., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 JBI.)

Background: Many people with advanced multiple sclerosis (MS) and their care-partners do not engage in sufficient physical activity (PA) for health benefits. We developed "Physical Activity Together for MS (PAT-MS)", a 12-week dyadic behavioural intervention, to promote PA among these dyads. Herein, we evaluated the feasibility of PAT-MS before a definitive trial., Methods: A randomized controlled feasibility trial, with 1:1 allocation into the intervention or wait-list control condition. Predefined progression criteria included rates of recruitment , retention , safety , participant satisfaction and adherence . Changes in self-reported and accelerometer-measured PA were assessed at baseline and post-intervention using mixed-factor ANOVAs. Effects sizes were calculated as Cohen's d ., Results: The recruitment rate (i.e., 20 participants in 10 months) was not acceptable. However, retention (80%) was acceptable. No serious adverse events were reported. There were high levels of participant satisfaction with the intervention (content (median = 6 out of 7), facilitator (median = 7 out of 7), and delivery (median = 5 out of 7)) and a dherence (92% of the group sessions, 83% of the individual support calls, and 80% of the practice activities were completed). There were statistically significant time-by-condition interactions on self-reported PA, steps/day, and %wear time and minutes in sedentary behaviour, and moderate-to-vigorous PA from baseline to post-intervention in people with MS and their family care-partners., Conclusion: PAT-MS appears feasible, safe, and efficacious for PA promotion in MS dyads. We established effect size estimates to power a future definitive trial and identified necessary methodological changes to increase the efficiency of study procedures and improve the quality of the intervention., Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04267185; Registered February 12, 2020, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04267185., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors.)

One of the puzzles surrounding social phobia is that patients with this problem are often exposed to phobic situations without showing a marked reduction in their fears. It is possible that individuals with social phobia engage in behaviors in the feared situation that are intended to avert feared catastrophes but that also prevent disconfirmation of their fears. This hypothesis was tested in a single case series of eight socially phobic patients. All patients received one session of exposure alone and one session of exposure plus decrease in "safety" behaviors in a counterbalanced within-subject design. Exposure plus decreased safety behaviors was significantly better than exposure alone in reducing within-situation anxiety and belief in the feared catastrophe. Other factors that may moderate exposure effects are also discussed., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Cognitive therapy (CT) is a specific and highly effective treatment for panic disorder (PD). Treatment normally involves 12-15 1-hr sessions. In an attempt to produce a more cost-effective version, a briefer treatment that made extensive use of between-sessions patient self-study modules was created. Forty-three PD patients were randomly allocated to full CT (FCT), brief CT (BCT), or a 3-month wait list. FCT and BCT were superior to wait list on all measures, and the gains obtained in treatment were maintained at 12-month follow-up. There were no significant differences between FCT and BCT. Both treatments had large (approximately 3.0) and essentially identical effect sizes. BCT required 6.5 hr of therapist time, including booster sessions. Patients' initial expectation of therapy success was negatively correlated with posttreatment panic-anxiety. Cognitive measures at the end of treatment predicted panic-anxiety at 12-month follow-up.

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of interpersonal problem-solving skills training (IPSST) for the treatment of self-poisoning patients. Thirty-nine self-poisoning patients were assigned randomly either to IPSST or to a control treatment condition (a brief problem-oriented approach). Both conditions were equally effective in reducing the number of presenting problems and in reducing hopelessness levels. However, the IPSST condition was significantly more effective than the control condition as determined by other outcome measures (measures of interpersonal cognitive problem solving, self-rated personal problem-solving ability, perceived ability to cope with ongoing problems, and self-perception). Follow-up studies showed maintenance of IPSST treatment gains at 6 months and a greater reduction of repetition of self-poisoning in the IPSST group at 1 year posttreatment.