
David SheffieldUniversity of Derby · Department of Psychology
David Sheffield
Ph.D. Psychology
About
268
Publications
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Introduction
David's work aims to understand the impact of stress on health, wellbeing and performance. He uses a range of methodologies (e.g. epidemiological, experimental, psychophysiological, interviews).
His current research interests include:
Nature Connectedness; Music and well-being; Pain and Pain Management in Patients and Athletes; Compassion and mindfulness based approaches to living; Inequalities and justice in healthcare; Women's health; and Cardiovascular Responses to Stress.
Additional affiliations
August 1999 - June 2001
July 1995 - June 1997
May 2010 - present
Publications
Publications (268)
Key theories of the human need for nature take an evolutionary perspective, and many of the mental well-being benefits of nature relate to positive affect. As affect has a physiological basis, it is important to consider these benefits alongside regulatory processes. However, research into nature and positive affect tends not to consider affect reg...
Background. The origins of mathematics anxiety have, until recently, received limited attention and an assessment measure has not yet been developed specifically for children aged 4-7 years in the U.K.
Aims. To develop the numeracy apprehension scale (NAS) for the assessment of numeracy apprehension in children between the ages of 4-7 years.
Samp...
Background
Mental contrasting is a self-regulation strategy that is required for strong goal commitment. In mental contrasting, individuals firstly imagine a desired future or health goal that contrasted with the reality proceeding the goal state, which after reflection is viewed as an obstacle (Oettingen et al. J Pers Soc Psychol 80:736–753, 2001)...
Stressful situations hinder judgement. Effects of stress induced by anticipated public speaking on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) were examined. The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) was used to examine the relationship between reflective thinking and IGT performance. The stress manipulation increased blood pressure and was associated with poorer IGT a...
To test the hypothesis that self-compassion predicts better physical health and that this is partially mediated through health-promoting behaviours, 147 adults completed self-report measures of self-compassion, health-promoting behaviours and physical health. Self-compassion and health-promoting behaviours were negatively associated with physical s...
Schoolteachers are a profession at high risk for workplace burnout. The Jobs Demands-Resource model is useful in understanding burnout in this population. However, a better understanding of what psychological and physiological factors serve as demands and resources, and how these might interact to predict burnout is needed. In this study, we obtain...
The Cognitive Mediation Beliefs Questionnaire is a 15-item tool that assesses individuals’ emotion beliefs about the cognitive mediation of emotions. It measures two emotion beliefs: stimulus–response generation beliefs and cognitive mediation change beliefs. This study aimed to reduce the number of items and test the validity of a briefer version...
This research investigates role demands and musculoskeletal pain (MSP) in UK Early Childhood Education (ECE) workforce (N = 196). Associations between frequency of actions construing higher risk to musculoskeletal health, and MSP, need to take sickness absence and considering changing jobs are considered. Differences be-
tween practitioners and lea...
Objectives
This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the effectiveness of creative arts therapy (CAT) interventions on the health outcomes of adult patients with cancer.
Methods
A comprehensive search was conducted in six databases from their inception to June 10, 2023, with no restrictions on sex, age, cancer type, cancer stage, or...
Community-based open-to-all choirs or singing groups are popular internationally and associated with multiple health and well-being benefits. Facilitators of such groups require specific skills, attributes and knowledge. Therefore, we examined literature to identify key characteristics of group singing facilitators (GSFs) using a systematic review...
Myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a chronic, disabling yet clinically “contested” condition, previously theorised through a lens of epistemic injustice. Phenomena conceptually close to epistemic injustice, including stigma, are known to have deleterious consequences on a person’s health and life-world. Yet, no known p...
Objectives
This review examined the effectiveness of using dance movement therapy (DMT) and dance movement interventions (DMIs) with cancer and palliative care patients.
Methods
A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Six databases were sea...
Collecting reliable and consistent data about people’s relationship with the natural environment is likely to be crucial to effective policy delivery by governments. Social surveys are a prominent tool in delivering this insight. In the UK, surveys on people’s relationship with nature are run by government bodies, non-governmental organisations, ac...
Objectives
This review aimed to synthesize the available evidence on the effectiveness of expressive writing (EW) on health outcomes of patients with cancer.
Methods
A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Six databases were searched from 19...
This systematic review assesses the methodological quality of manuscripts focusing on scales that explicitly measure nature connectedness. A literature search in six electronic databases was conducted using a search strategy based on PICO guidelines. Only peer-reviewed primary research available in and BehaviorTiscareno-Osorno et al. research-artic...
Erectile dysfunction is a major chronic condition affecting hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide. This review provides a concise overview of research on the psychological experience of erectile dysfunction. There is evidence that psychological factors such as personality, depression, stress, and cognitive interference (e.g., performance wo...
Introduction
whilst recent years have witnessed considerable research into infant categorisation, its development during the pre-school period has garnered far less interest and innovation.
Objective
this paper documents the development of a valid and reliable new toolkit for measuring categorisation in children, designed to allow fine-grained dif...
Understanding physiological processes associated with mindfulness and compassion-based interventions is an emerging area of research interest. Of particular relevance is how such interventions can aid physiological health and well-being and by association stress and coping. In this regard, the study of alpha-amylase as a biomarker of autonomic nerv...
This report was commissioned by the RSPB and presents findings on the impact of connection to nature from a survey of 775 children, using the child as the unit of analysis, rather than aggregated data. The results demonstrated that children who were moreconn ected to nature had significantly higher English Attainment, although this wasn’t repeated...
This article examines the practice of combining explorations of regulated and dysregulated states through the Workable Ranges Model (WRM) with the skills and qualities taught in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). MBSR was designed to help participants to self-regulate stress. Didactic teaching about stress reactivity is part of the curricul...
With clear links between an individual’s sense of nature connectedness, their psychological wellbeing, and engagement in nature-friendly behaviours, efforts to improve people’s relationships with nature can help unite human and planetary wellbeing. In the context of a rapidly growing evidence base, this paper updates previous meta-analytic reviews...
Background: To date, there is a considerable amount of evidence on the positive effects of exposure to natural environments on mental health and wellbeing. This field of research does not sit within medical or health care disciplines and it has been slow to penetrate them. Thus, this study aims to explore the potential for enhancing the effectivene...
This study aimed to see if context in the form of priming can alter a participants thinking style based on their level of implicit association with either a religious or paranormal belief. This was based on the theory of alief, when a person’s explicit belief and behaviour are mismatched. This was also linked to dual process theory, with alief bein...
This research explores the relationships between nature connectedness, pro-nature conservation behavior, life satisfaction, and mindfulness in children aged 9–11 years and assesses the impact of a three good things in nature writing intervention. Participants were assigned to either an experimental condition, writing about three good things in natu...
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is an endocrine condition that has been associated with atypical emotional regulation strategy use as well as elevated levels of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal ideation. Despite the existence of clinical screening guidance for this population, there is still little to no understanding of how non-suicida...
This study aimed to examine the relationships between mental wellbeing and positive psychological constructs in therapeutic students (psychotherapy and occupational therapy students). The number of therapeutic students has increased recently, however they suffer from poor mental health, which may be improved by potentiating their positive psycholog...
You can download a free copy via our website: https://www.singingsidebyside.co.uk/toolkit
Shinrin-yoku (forest-bathing), immersing oneself in nature using one's senses, has been receiving increased attention internationally. While most of the existing studies have focused on physical health, this systematic review and meta-analysis examined the mental health benefits of shinrin-yoku (i.e., depression, anxiety, anger), using the PRISMA g...
Accepted Manuscript
Accepted 14 May 2021
Systematic review: self-monitoring of blood glucose in patients with Type 2 Diabetes
Abstract
Aims
The benefit of self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) in the reduction of HbA1c in non-insulin-treated participants remains unclear. HbA1c may be improved in this population with SMBG. We aimed to investigate...
Purpose
Visiting and connecting with nature through psychological interventions improves well-being within the general population. However, few such interventions have been conducted in clinically relevant populations. This paper aims to address this gap by investigating the effectiveness of a nature-based psychological intervention within a clinic...
Please find info here:
https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/66rg4xct46/1
This is a background file to:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356338276_Facilitating_the_planning_and_evaluation_of_narrative_intervention_reviews_Systematic_Transparency_Assessment_in_Intervention_Reviews_STAIR
Narrative reviews offer a flexible way to report intervention results and comprise the majority of reviews published in top medical journals. However variations in their transparency pose evaluation challenges, compromising their value and potentially resulting in research wastage. Calls have been made to reduce the number of narrative reviews publ...
This study compared mindfulness practice outcomes retrieved from the authors’ earlier studies in simulated and actual natural environments. We found that both simulated and actual natural environments boosted these outcomes. However, the actual natural environment was associated with larger decreases in stress and greater increases in nature connec...
Buddhism is an ancient religion and philosophy of living that is practised worldwide. More recent interest in mindfulness as a practice and intervention in the West has highlighted Buddhist-derived concepts as useful in supporting health and well-being. As a result, the desire to understand Buddhism in its more complete form has strengthened. Altho...
Objective
We aimed to assess evidence of the effectiveness of song-based public health programmes and to examine the analyses of song lyrics to learn what their key qualities for public health promotion are.
Methods
A systematic search was employed to identify empirical studies that examined song interventions for public health education and promo...
Theories relating to healthy and successful aging do not specifically cater for the oldest-old. This predominantly theoretical research considers the relevance of existing healthy and successful aging theories in the oldest-old. It explores a small sample of interviews of independently living oldest-old using Differential Qualitative Analysis. The...
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is an endocrine condition that has been associated with atypical emotional regulation strategy use as well as elevated levels of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. Despite the existence of clinical screening guidance for this population, there is still little to know understanding of how non-suic...
An interim project report assessing the relationship between mathematics anxiety, enjoyment, shame, resilience, motivation, subject norm and performance. This report is based on cross-country comparisons involving secondary school students in Pakistan, Iran, and Uganda.
Suggested citation: Hunt, T. E, Muwonge, C. M., Ashraf, F., Ansanjarani, F.,...
Living in urban environments can leave people disconnected from nature and less likely to engage with biodiversity conservation. Within urban areas, residential gardens can occupy large proportions of greenspace and provide important habitat for biodiversity. Understanding the views and knowledge of garden owners who have collective responsibility...
Aside from practical interventions such as providing green infrastructure to improve air quality or water contamination and reduce flooding, well-being interventions to increase engagement with the natural environment are one of the fastest growing ways of improving human and environmental health. This feasibility study assessed a novel smartphone...
Objective
We aimed to assess and synthesise the current state of quantitative and qualitative research concerning creative arts interventions for older informal caregivers of people with neurological conditions.
Methods
A systematic search was employed to identify studies that examined creative arts interventions for older informal caregivers, whi...
Objectives
Affiliative processes are postulated to improve pain coping. Comparatively, compassion-focused imagery (CFI) also stimulates affiliate affect systems with a burgeoning behavioural, cognitive and physiological evidence base. Thus, the purpose of the present research was to investigate if engaging in brief CFI could improve pain coping.
M...
Objectives
This research is the first study to investigate the potential effects of a laughter prescription on both psychological health and objective sleep parameters in university students. The primary objective is to evaluate the feasibility of prescribing laughter to inform a larger randomised controlled trial. Secondary objectives are to asses...
The effects of the intervention Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on self-reported measures of burnout.
Through this paper, we explore unbundling, the separation of various aspects of education, resources, teaching and assessment (Ossiannilsson et al., 2015) and rebundling, where these activities are “recombined into new configurations with little loss of functionality” (Ge et al., 2004, p. 1). We chart the evolution of online learning at the Univers...
In response to the outbreak of Covid-19,
governments around the world have published
their guidelines including rigorous hand
washing, respiratory etiquette, social distancing
and restrictions in movements and gatherings (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 2020). Songs have been
used to share key advice since the start of the
outbr...
Objective:
The stress reactivity hypothesis posits that the extremes of exaggerated and low or blunted cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to stress may lead to adverse health outcomes via psychophysiological pathways. A potential indirect pathway between CVR and disease outcomes is through health-related behaviour and behaviour change. However, this...
Objectives
Work is beginning to explore the impact of mindfulness in managing the physical and psychological health of people with spinal cord injury (SCI). However, no previous work has sought to understand what drives people with such conditions to try mindfulness, and what barriers are experienced in accessing mindfulness.
Design
An exploratory...
Since the early 2000s, a plethora of web-based learning technologies has been developed, each proposing to improve the student experience. Yet, a study conducted by Martin et al. (2018) demonstrate sporadic new technology adoption in Higher Education (HE), despite wide-scale social interest and a wealth of academic publications. This paper aims to...
This study investigated whether the impacts of a commonly used wellbeing intervention, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), are enhanced when combined with the benefits of exposure to a natural environment. Participants (n = 99) were randomly assigned to a weekly one-hour MBSR in one of three different environments (i.e. natural outdoor, buil...
The development of math anxiety is thought to originate at a young age, as a form of number anxiety, but has not been investigated extensively. Research has shown greater levels of EEG gamma-band activity are experienced during threat perception and attentional bias. This has been identified in high math anxious individuals when confronted with mat...
Objectives
The Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form (SCS-SF) was developed as an economical alternative for the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), one of the few scales to assess self-compassion. Despite the active use of the SCS-SF, a psychometric evaluation of this scale remains limited. This study analysed the factor structure, reliability, and construct...
During pain, motor performance tends to decline. However, athletes who engage in contact sports are able to maintain performance despite the inherent pain that accompanies participation. This may be the result of being challenged rather than threatened by pain; adaptive coping strategies; habituation to pain; or finding pain less bothersome. This s...
Objective: To identify the behaviour change techniques and intervention components associated with the promotion of physical activity (PA) for children and young people living with and beyond cancer.
Design and main outcome measures: A systematic review and narrative synthesis was conducted on the evidence on PA interventions for children and youn...
Despite the importance of effective observational analysis in coaching the technical aspects of climbing performance, limited research informs this aspect of climbing coach education. Thus, the purpose of the present research was to explore the feasibility and the utility of a novel methodology, combining eye tracking technology and cued retrospect...
Objectives
The Japanese healing practice of shinrin-yoku (forest-bathing) involves immersing oneself in nature using one's senses; it has been receiving increased attention internationally. Many studies have reported health benefits but most have focused on physical health. Given the concerns regarding mental health worldwide, the purpose of this s...
Introduction
The accessibility of laughter and humour make them attractive choices for self-care, and integrative medicine. There is a growing body of literature, but both fields are fragmented and the overall evidence has not been systematically reviewed. The relationship between health and personal development is increasingly recognized. This rev...
Urban green space can help mitigate the negative impacts of urban living and provide positive effects on citizens’ mood, health and well-being. Questions remain, however, as to whether all types of green space are equally beneficial, and if not, what landscape forms or key features optimise the desired benefits. For example, it has been cited that...
Nature connectedness relates to an individual’s subjective sense of their relationship with the natural world. A recent meta-analysis has found that people who are more connected to nature also tend to have higher levels of self-reported hedonic well-being; however, no reviews have focussed on nature connection and eudaimonic well-being. This meta-...
Objectives
This study examined the effect of cold pressor pain on performance in high-contact athletes, low-contact athletes and non-athletes.
Design
A three-group between-subjects experimental design was used.
Method
Seventy-one participants completed a motor task and a cognitive task of different complexity (easy or hard) both in pain and not i...
The Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (TCTSA) provides a psychophysiological framework for how athletes anticipate motivated performance situations. The purpose of this review is to discuss how research has addressed the 15 predictions made by the TCTSA, to evaluate the mechanisms underpinning the TCTSA in light of the research that...
Objectives: Group singing has been reported to enhance quality of life (QoL) and mental health in older people. This paper explored whether there are differences in the effects of group singing intervention on people with Parkinson’s (PwPs) in Australia, UK and South Korea.
Methods: The study included PwPs (N = 95; mean age = 70.26; male 45%) who p...
Although often categorised by cultural differences (e.g. collectivism and individualism), Japan and the UK have several cultural commonalities. One of them is that both countries are known to have a ‘shame culture’; people in these countries often recognise shame in their lives relating to their cultural virtues. While shame can lead to social conf...
The ability to perform under heightened levels of pressures is one of the largest discriminators of those who achieve success in competition and those who do not. There are several phenomena associated with breakdowns in an athlete’s performance in a high-pressure environment, collectively known as paradoxical performances. The two most prevalent a...
This study aimed to create and test a new model of supernatural belief
based on cognition and personality. Two theories of belief in the paranormal were evaluated in two studies: the Cognitive Deficits Hypothesis and the Psychodynamics Functions Hypothesis. The first study examined the relationship between cognition, supernatural belief, critical t...