This study examined whether giving activity feedback to obese, sedentary adults with Type 2 diabetes would improve their adherence to a home-based walking program. 49 subjects were recruited. Ten failed a treadmill cardiovascular test. Another 9 dropped out before the intervention, and 4 dropped out during the intervention. The remaining 26 adults (14 women, 12 men; age M = 48.1 yr., SD = 7.1) received behavioral counseling monthly for 3 mo. regarding exercise. All subjects wore a triaxial accelerometer during these 3 months. Randomly, half of the subjects were blind to the data from the accelerometers, i.e., no feedback, and had counseling based on their self-report diaries. The other half had access to the accelerometer data, got a computerized graph of their physical activity for the period between counseling sessions, and had counseling based on these objective data, i.e., feedback. The feedback group showed an increase in exercise over the 3 mo. The nonfeedback group showed an increase in activity at 1.5 mo. but reverted to their baseline exercise levels at 3 mo. However, analysis of variance showed there was at least an 8% probability that this effect was due to chance, so the hypothesis that feedback would improve exercise adherence could not be supported. Further studies with larger sample sizes and greater control of experimental conditions are needed to determine the utility of objective activity feedback.

University or College years seem to be a stressful time for students due to many challenges: academic, personal adjustment to a new life, and socially building new friendships. Life satisfaction is considered one of the basic components of psychological well-being. Studies have supported that lower levels of life satisfaction have been related to high levels of anxiety. Also the constructs of assertiveness and empathy seem to be related with life satisfaction. The present study compares 1 st and 4 th-year undergraduate students in relation to variables such as life satisfaction (The Life Satisfaction Index), stress, (STAI) assertiveness (Rathus Assertiveness Schedule) and empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)). The participants were in total 410, 1 st year (N = 205) and 4 th year (N = 205) undergraduate students. All findings are discussed in detail; some main results showed that: 1) Independently of sex students had similar anxiety levels; life satisfaction was significantly higher among those with low state anxiety but not with low trait anxiety; 2) Trait anxiety score analysis revealed nonsignificant results; 3) Young women are more life satisfied compared to young men among 1 st year students; 4) The percent of students with high life satisfaction is significantly higher among those that grew up in urban and semi-urban regions compared to those that grew up in other regions. The findings of the present study emphasize the need to explore ways to help undergraduate students to adjust during their academic years and life at the University.

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This prospective study in 119 patients with cardiovascular diseases aimed to examine whether (a) illness representations mediate the relation of general maladaptive health beliefs to patients' coping behaviours and (b) these relations are moderated by the patients' perception of the amount of information provided by their physicians. Personal control and illness coherence mediated the relation of maladaptive health beliefs to coping behaviour. The amount of the provided information buffered the negative relation of maladaptive health beliefs to illness representations and coping. Thus, the detrimental effect of general maladaptive health beliefs may be counterbalanced by the amount of information provided by physicians.

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