title: Conditional indirect relations of cardiac patients' subjective health to optimism through illness representations: a self-regulation circuit.
abstract: The aim of this study was to examine whether chronic patients' subjective health can prospectively predict optimism through illness representations, as well as whether this relation depends on health levels. A sample of 97 cardiac patients participated in the two phases of the study. Subjective health predicted optimism with several illness representations serving as mediators. These relations were, however, conditional on the values of subjective health. Such findings suggest that the interplay between patients' subjective health, illness representations, and optimism seems to function rather as a complex circuit system, than as a process of simple cyclical feedbacks.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Crete, Greece. karademas@psy.soc.uoc.gr
authors: Evangelos C
authors: EC
authors: Karademas