2002; Broadbent et al. 2006) or a shorter version, the IPQ brief, may be preferred due to their improved psychometric properties over that of the original p38 protein kinase illness perceptions questionnaire (Weinman et al. 1996). Secondly, the illness perception questionnaire most often needs further modification to be useful for a particular disease or cultural setting, in particular for the causal and identity scales (Moss-Morris and Chalder 2003). This is illustrated in the study by McCarthy et al. (2003) who changed the IPQ scale characteristics considerably, although it is not clear whether

this VS-4718 also influenced the strength of the associations in any direction. This highlights the need for psychometric testing of the IPQ and subsequent versions for

different diseases and settings, in particular if substantial revisions are made (French and Weinman 2008). Thirdly, it is suggested that the illness perception dimensions are not used in isolation (Leventhal and Cameron 1987), but interpreted as a whole or in subsets or profiles to be useful in practice (French and Weinman 2008), which may be different from its use in prediction studies where typically only the strongest predictors (i.e., single dimensions) are of interest. Both for clinical practice www.selleckchem.com/products/gdc-0994.html and for research purposes, the use and interpretation of absolute illness perception scores could be improved, however, especially if cut-off values were to be proposed and normative data would help to distinguish ‘helpful’ from ‘unhelpful’ illness perceptions in different diseases and settings. In addition, it will be of interest to investigate whether combinations of illness perception dimensions show stronger relationships with work disability when compared to single dimensions. Illness perceptions and patient expectation beliefs show promise in predicting health and work participation outcomes in several other studies. In a meta-analysis of 45 studies, Hagger and Orbell (2003) showed that there are predictable relations between illness

representations, illness coping behavior and outcomes across studies 17-DMAG (Alvespimycin) HCl and across different illness types. A link between illness representations and health outcomes was shown for the dimensions ‘consequences’, ‘identity’ and ‘timeline’ which all showed a negative relationship with quality of life dimensions such as psychological well-being, role and social functioning, and vitality (Hagger and Orbell 2003). These three dimensions were frequently applied in our review and showed significant differences in the descriptive analyses although not consistently across all studies, except for the consequences dimension. This review adds to the growing body of evidence in showing that ideas and expectations patients have about their illness and recovery are good predictors of future health outcomes and functioning.