Different Coping Constructs in Haematological Cancer Patients: The Influence of Dyadic on Individual Coping Interplay of DC and IC in Haematological Cancer

Abstract

Objective. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between individual coping (IC) and dyadic coping (DC), more specifically the respective predictive impact of DC and sociodemographic, partnership-related, and medical variables on IC in haematological cancer patients. Methods. In this multicenter longitudinal study, we examined DCI (Dyadic Coping Inventory) and IC (Freiburg Questionnaire on Coping with Illness) in 214 haematological cancer patients after their treatment and six months later. Associations between the coping constructs were calculated using Pearson correlations. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the predictive impact of patient-specific variables on IC strategies. Results. Pearson correlation revealed numerous significant associations between DC and IC at the baseline and follow-up, but none of them yielded r ≥ 0.4 (p<0.01). Regression analyses showed a predictive impact of supportive DC on compliance (p<0.05) and of common DC on active IC (p<0.01). Concerning patient-specific variables, age stood out as a positive predictor of trivialization (p<0.001) and compliance (p<0.01) and psychological distress as a predictor of depressive IC (p<0.001), distraction (p<0.05), and trivialization (p<0.05). Conclusion. Our results indicate that patients’ personal characteristics, such as age and psychological distress, outweigh the influence of DC on IC in haematological cancer patients.