Toli Agoro, Webb Thomas L, Hardy Gillian E
University of Sheffield, UK.
Br J Clin Psychol. 2016 Mar;55(1):69-90. doi: 10.1111/bjc.12086. Epub 2015 May 12.
People struggle to act on the goals that they set themselves, and this gap between intention and action is likely to be exacerbated by mental health problems. Evidence suggests that forming specific if-then plans (or 'implementation intentions') can promote goal attainment and a number of studies have applied such techniques in clinical contexts. However, to date, the extent to which planning can help people with mental health problems has not been systematically examined.
The present review used meta-analysis to investigate the effect of if-then planning on goal attainment among people with a DSM-IV/ICD-10 diagnosis (i.e., clinical samples) or scores above a relevant cut-off on clinical measures (i.e., analogue samples). In total, 29 experimental studies, from 18 records, met the inclusion criteria.
Excluding one outlying (very large) effect, forming implementation intentions had a large-sized effect on goal attainment (d+ = 0.99, k = 28, N = 1,636). Implementation intentions proved effective across different mental health problems and goals, and in studies with different methodological approaches.
Taken together, the findings suggest that forming implementation intentions can be a useful strategy for helping people with mental health problems to achieve various goals and might be usefully integrated into existing treatment approaches. However, further studies are needed addressing a wider range of mental health problems.
人们在将自己设定的目标付诸行动时会遇到困难，而心理健康问题可能会加剧这种意图与行动之间的差距。有证据表明，制定具体的“如果……那么……”计划（即“执行意图”）可以促进目标的实现，并且一些研究已经在临床环境中应用了此类技术。然而，迄今为止，计划在多大程度上能够帮助有心理健康问题的人尚未得到系统研究。
本综述采用荟萃分析来研究“如果……那么……”计划对诊断为DSM-IV/ICD-10（即临床样本）或临床测量得分高于相关临界值（即模拟样本）的人群实现目标的影响。总共从18份记录中筛选出29项实验研究，符合纳入标准。
排除一项异常大的效应后，形成执行意图对目标实现有较大影响（d+ = 0.99，k = 28，N = 1636）。执行意图在不同的心理健康问题和目标以及不同方法学途径的研究中均被证明是有效的。
综合来看，研究结果表明，形成执行意图可能是帮助有心理健康问题的人实现各种目标的有用策略，并且可能有效地整合到现有的治疗方法中。然而，需要进一步研究以解决更广泛的心理健康问题。
