Abstract:
Transferring skills to non-clinic contexts remains a challenge for
clinical psychologists. Research is needed that investigates strategies
of transferring clinic skills as well as factors that are associated
with successful transfer. This paper presents research that involved
training clients to reduce blood pressure (BP)in the home environment
and isolating factors related to successful BP reduction. Subjects
diagnosed with mild hypertension participated in a controlled trial
investigating the efficacy of continuous BP feedback in helping to
reduce systolic BP in the clinic and home environment. While the
benefits of learning BP feedback in the clinic was not shown to be
beneficial over a control, training in the home environment was shown
to reduce BP significantly in comparison to controls. Factors shown
to be associated consistently and reliably with reduction of BP in the
home were those that involved beliefs or expectations of self-control.
Expectations (self-efficacy)and an internal locus of control consistently
predicted the ability to reduce both systolic and diastolic BP in the
home environment. Implications for the behavioural treatment of
hypertension are discussed.
