Levels Of Pessimism Research Articles

Coping strategies, life style changes, and pessimism after open-heart surgery.

A mail questionnaire was completed by 171 patients two to 20 months after undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). The post-CABG period was characterized by fewer working hours, a higher level of physical exercise, a reduction in smoking, and more appropriate nutritional habits, compared with the preoperation period. At the same time, the anxiety level of post-CABG patients was higher than that measured in a community sample. Post-CABG high psychological distress (anxiety and mood states) and low functional capacity were associated with high levels of pessimism and ineffective emotion-focused coping strategies. These results may be used by social workers in devising psychological interventions aimed at improving post-CABG patients' quality of life and bolstering their coping strategies.

Determination of future health status expectation in rheumatoid arthritis

While examining the relationship between, neuroticism, somatic factors and future health status expectation in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, the present study found a considerable level of pessimism in patients, which may be related to perceived limitation of the quality of life. However, psychosocial disposition (i.e., neuroticism) did not prove to be a crucial factor by which RA patients assessed their future health status expectation. These results may be important in future treatment procedures.

Families of children with Prader-Willi syndrome: stress-support and relations to child characteristics.

This study examined stress-support in 42 families of 3 to 18-year-old children with Prader-Willi syndrome. Parents were asked about themselves and their families, their child with Prader-Willi syndrome, family supports, and family stress. Compared to reported stress levels in families of children with mixed etiologies of retardation, parents of children with Prader-Willi syndrome showed higher levels of parent and family problems, and comparable levels of pessimism. Parents of children with Prader-Willi syndrome listed other family members and friends as their main supporters; often such supporters lived outside of the respondent's town or city. Although the child's age, IQ, and degree of obesity were not related to familial stress, families experienced greater stress when the child showed more behavior problems overall, more externalizing and internalizing problems, and more problems on five of the nine narrow-band domains of Achenbach's Child Behavior Checklist.

Choice and constraints in floodplain occupation: the influence of structural factors on residential location in peninsular Malaysia.

In Peninsular Malaysia 'structural' factors are found to influence strongly people's persistent occupation of floodplains. Thus, despite a high level of flood hazard awareness, a high level of pessimism and a high level of expectation of future floods, poorer individuals seldom attempt to leave for more advantageous locations but are instead trapped in their present locations by structural factors such as poverty, low residential and occupational mobility, low educational attainment, traditional land inheritance, government aid, and government disaster preparedness, relief and rehabilitation programmes. These forces exert a strong influence upon individuals and largely control their choice of residential location in response to flood hazards, thereby reinforcing the persistent occupation of floodplains. Structural factors such as landlessness, rural-urban migration, floodplain encroachment and squatting are also highly influential in leading people to move. Even for those who move, structural factors have largely confined their choice of residential location to urban floodplains.

Coping styles of learning disabled adolescents and their parents

The study compares coping styles of 50 learning disabled and nonlearning disabled adolescents and their parents. Analyses indicate that learning disabled adolescents show less ability to appraise a source of stress and seek information in the various domains with which they are expected to cope. Also, they reveal a higher level of pessimism about problems in academic-related domains. Coping patterns of parents of learning disabled adolescents do not show clear differences from parents of nonlearning disabled. Yet mothers of learning disabled adolescents tend more to seek and accept help. Learning disabled adolescents' coping is clearly related to coping or more specifically to difficulties in coping of their parents. Results are discussed in the context of the special difficulties of the learning disabled during adolescence and the role their parents play during this developmental stage.

Asthma and Stigma

A questionnaire was sent to all asthmatics between the ages of 18 and 60 identified from a rural family practice in Southwestern Ontario. The questionnaire measured various attitudes concerning asthma and was used to identify those respondents reporting high levels of pessimism or stigma in relation to their condition. Seven respondents were then interviewed in depth, using interpretive research methods, to explore the experience of their condition and to attempt to clarify the concept of stigma in asthma. The conclusion of the study was that, for the respondents interviewed, stigma was not a major theme in their illness experience and seemed much less important than the current literature and the initial questionnaire results suggested.