To register your interest in being part of this study, please email Paul at paul@phauk.org or call him on 01709 761450
Managing anxiety, panic & worry with PH We’re playing a key role in the development of a new resource to help people with PH manage anxiety, panic and worry. Paul Sephton, Research Support and Development Coordinator at the PHA UK, explains more.
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e know that living with pulmonary hypertension can have a significant impact on mental and emotional wellbeing. In fact, research we carried out last year showed 92 per cent of people feel their emotional wellbeing has been affected, and 53 per cent have experienced or been diagnosed with anxiety or depression.* As well as providing support to our members via our partnership with Anxiety UK (see p14 for details), we’re now partnering with psychology researchers at the University of Sheffield to pilot a self-help intervention aimed at helping people with PH manage their feelings and emotions. The intervention, which will initially take the form of a printed resource, is based on a type of therapy called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), used widely to help people experiencing difficulties with their mental health. CBT can help you make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller parts, and this resource will include information about pulmonary hypertension and anxiety and how the two can interact. It will also feature a range of techniques and skills to help you to better understand and cope with symptoms of anxiety - such as excessive worry, fear, panic, nervousness and stress.
We’ll be asking a group of volunteers to test the resource, as the aim of the study is to understand whether this type of intervention is an effective way of helping people. If you would be interested in being part of this pilot, please contact me using the details in the box at the top of this page. We’ll bring you more information on this in the next issue of Emphasis and will update you via our website and social media channels as things progress.
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*'The True Emotional Impact of Pulmonary Hypertension' 2019. The full findings are available to view at www.phauk.org
SUMMER 2020 emphasis 33
