The future of health psychology interventions

Progress in health psychology interventions was reviewed to manage chronic illness, treat psychophysiological disorders, and provide complementary treatment for difficult medical symptoms. A closer synergy between research, clinical applications and public policy, and education and training was advocated to guide future work in these areas. Further, the importance of clinical input informing research directions, the need for interventions to focus on a broader range of individual difference and contextual factors, and for effectiveness studies to influence the adoption of treatments in clinical settings was emphasized. In accordance, greater effort should be devoted to disseminating information on treatment effectiveness to professional and lay groups to maximize the public health benefit of established intervention approaches.