Psychophysiological processes of stress in people with a chronic physical illness.

Abstract

This dissertation addressed the following research question which emerged from the theoretical framework. What is the relationship between each of the explanatory variables (disease severity, perceived stress events, basic need satisfaction, psychosocial attributes, gender, and the interactive terms of stress with need satisfaction and stress with attributes) and a dependent variable of symptomatic experience to people with COPD? Fifty eight males and 51 females participated in the one-group non-experimental cross-sectional survey. Mean age of the sample was 65 years. A singular regression analysis indicated that the explanatory variables were significant predictors of symptomatic experience. Disease severity, basic need satisfaction, and gender had significant independent effects. The joint effect of need satisfaction and the interactive term of perceived stress events with need satisfaction on symptomatic experience was also significant. Perceived stress events, psychosocial attributes and the interactive terms failed to reach statistical significance in this sample. An alternative path analytic model generally supported the data. The psychosocial attributes variable was a significant predictor of basic need satisfaction. Basic need satisfaction was a significant predictor of perceived stress events and symptomatic experience, and perceived stress events was a significant predictor of symptomatic experience. Data were not compatible with the hypotheses that psychosocial attributes would directly affect perceived stress events and symptomatic experience, and that disease severity would directly affect symptomatic experience. The psychosocial attributes variable was a significant predictor of basic need satisfaction for both sexes. For males, basic need satisfaction was a significant predictor of symptomatic experience, while psychosocial attributes were not. For females, the psychosocial attributes variable was a significant predictor of symptomatic experience, while basic need satisfaction was not. It was concluded that symptomatic experience in people with COPD may be allayed through clinical interventions designed to strengthen psychosocial attributes and promote basic need satisfaction in both males and females. Strengthening these resources should reduce symptomatic experience directly as well as indirectly, through their impact on perceived stress.