Results indicate that accepting the limitations imposed by chronic disease and readjusting life goals may have a positive effect upon well-being in adolescents and young adults with CF. Further research is needed to clarify whether acceptance-based interventions are useful in promoting well-being in adolescents and young adults with CF.

This study explored the role of acceptance in accounting for the heterogeneity in psychological functioning in adolescents suffering from cystic fibrosis. Thirty-four adolescents completed a battery of questionnaires assessing acceptance, anxiety, depression, and disability. Regression analyses revealed that acceptance had a significant and unique contribution in explaining adolescents' anxiety, depression, and disability beyond the effects of demographic variables and parameters of disease severity. Forced expiratory volume, a parameter of disease severity, had a unique contribution in explaining disability, but not in explaining anxiety and depression. Our results support the idea that accepting the limitations imposed by a chronic disease and readjusting life goals has a positive effect upon psychological functioning in adolescents with cystic fibrosis. Acceptance-based therapies might prove useful in promoting well-being in adolescents with cystic fibrosis.

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Social stress has been related to both physiological and psychological responses. The recovery of stress is influenced by the way environmental information is processed, i.e., what information is attended to and how it is interpreted. The present study investigated the effect of attention modification training on physiological stress recovery following induced stress. A group of applicants preparing for a job interview were randomly allocated to an attention training condition versus a control condition. Afterwards, they were asked to give an artificial job interview to a real life jury while being videotaped. Participants in both conditions showed decreased heart rate variability during the job interview, which indicates an overall physiological stress response. However, during a 30-minute follow-up period after the training, indices of heart rate variability showed improved stress recovery only in the attention training condition. Attentional training is proposed as a promising strategy to prevent enduring stress reactions.

The present study suggests that a non-negligible number of adolescents and young adults with CF experience pain and distress during spirometry. Furthermore, results indicate that acceptance may play a protective role in the more indirect consequences of CF such as expected pain and pain-related thoughts during medical procedures. Acceptance, however, was not related to distress before and during spirometry, nor to experienced pain. These findings contribute to the increasing evidence that acceptance may play a protective role in managing the consequences of living with CF.