Abstract
Acceptance of illness has been shown to improve the well-being of individuals suffering from chronic illnesses. We developed a new acceptance of illness scale, “Positive Psychology-Based Acceptance of Illness Scale: PAIS,” for HTLV-1 associated myelopathy (HAM) patients, one of the intractable neurological diseases with a chronic course. The validity and internal consistency of this PAIS were examined in 260 HAM patients in Japan. Exploratory factor analysis extracted four factors with 21 items: “Loving myself as I am”; “Experiencing the grace of illness”; “Feeling a loving connection with others”; and “Developing as a mature person”. Cronbach’s α was .83 to .88, except for Factor 4 which was slightly low at 0.64, and internal consistency was confirmed. A significant correlation was found between the PAIS and the index of convergent validity. The study’s findings are an important step toward a more comprehensive concept of acceptance of illness.
Highlights
The number of patients suffering from chronic illnesses has been rapidly increasing in Japan
The purpose of this study was to develop a new acceptance of illness scale “the Positive Psychology-Based Acceptance of Illness Scale (PAIS)” in Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) associated myelopathy (HAM) patients, which is one of the intractable neurological diseases with a chronic course
The participants were human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) associated myelopathy HAM patients registered on a nationwide HAM patient registry kept by Coler-Reilly et al (2016) in Japan, who had already given their consent for medical research
Summary
The number of patients suffering from chronic illnesses has been rapidly increasing in Japan. In 1996, approximately 11 million people suffered from some of the most common chronic illnesses (such as hypertension, diabetes, and stroke) This increased by 26% to approximately 14 million people by 2014 (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, 2014). Among patients with cancer, chronic heart failure, diabetes, and hypertension, the level of illness acceptance is positively correlated to higher quality of life (Bień et al., 2015; Jankowska-Polańska, Kasprzyk et al, 2016; Kurpas et al, 2013), reduced negative emotions (Jankowska-Polańska, Blicharska et al, 2016; Kostyła et al, 2013; Lewko et al, 2012), and healthier emotional management (JankowskaPolańska, Kasprzyk et al, 2016; Nowicki et al, 2015)
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