Living with Huntington's disease: illness perceptions, coping mechanisms, and spouses' quality of life.
Chronic illness not only affects the life of those suffering from Huntington's disease but also threatens the quality of life (QOL) of their spouses. In this study, we focus on Huntington's disease (HD). The impact of HD on the QOL of spouses has been hardly studied from a behavioral medicine or health psychology perspective. We hypothesize that spouses' illness perceptions and coping mechanisms will contribute significantly to the prediction of their QOL. Illness perceptions, coping mechanisms, and the QOL of 90 spouses of patients with HD were assessed by means of the Illness Perception Questionnaire, the COPE, and the Medical Outcome Study 36-item Short Form Health Survey, respectively. After controlling for demographic and illness-related variables, coping mechanisms explained a significant amount of variance of spouses' role functioning. Given our results, more empirical and longitudinal research is justified on coping mechanisms and illness perceptions of spouses living with Huntington's disease.
Unit of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Centre, P.O. Box 1251, 2340 BG Oegstgeest, The Netherlands. dhelder@hotmail.com
D I
DI
Helder
A A
AA
Kaptein
G M J
GM
Van Kempen
J
J
Weinman
J C
JC
Van Houwelingen
R A C
RA
Roos
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001294:Attitude to Health; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology; D017281:Cost of Illness; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D012803:Sick Role; D018454:Spouses / Q000523:psychology*