Couple-Oriented Education and Support Intervention for Osteoarthritis: Effects on Spouses' Support and Responses to Patient Pain.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether a couple-oriented education and support intervention for osteoarthritis was more efficacious than a similar patient-oriented intervention in terms of enhancing spouses' support of patients and their positive and negative responses to patient pain. Repeated-measures analyses of covariance with the completers sample (N = 103 dyads) showed that at the postintervention assessment, patients in the couple-oriented intervention reported a greater decrease in their spouses' punishing responses (e.g., anger, irritation) than did patients in the patient-oriented intervention. In addition, a trend effect was observed in regard to the advantage of couple-oriented intervention for increasing spouses' attempts to distract patients from their pain. At the 6-month follow-up, patients in the couple-oriented intervention reported greater increased spouse support than those in the patient-oriented intervention. Findings illustrate the value of examining change in specific types of marital interactions targeted in a couples intervention, and the need to strengthen the impact of future couple-oriented interventions.
Martire
Lynn M
LM
Lynn M. Martire, PhD, and Richard Schulz, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and University Center for Social and Urban Research, University of Pittsburgh; Francis J. Keefe, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Duke University; Thomas E. Rudy, PhD, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Evaluation and Treatment Institute, University of Pittsburgh; Terence W. Starz, MD, Division of Rheumatology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh.
Schulz
Richard
R
Keefe
Francis J
FJ
Rudy
Thomas E
TE
Starz
Terence W
TW