Author(s)

Svetlana Pomeshkina, Anton Solodukhin, Anastasia Inozemtseva, Mikhail Yanitskiy, Andrey Seryy and Olga Barbarash

Corresponding Author

Andrey Seryy

ABSTRACT

the study was aimed at determining the associations between patients’ perception of illness, coping-strategies to overcome disease-related stress and adherence to treatment in patients following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). 378 men after elective CABG were recruited in the study. Patients were interviewed 5-7 days before CABG and 6 months after by a health psychologist. The clinical status was assessed in all patients. All relevant data in the in-patient and outpatient medical records were reviewed. All recruited subjects responded on the Personal Questionnaire of the Bekhterev Institute (PQBI) before CABG. The coping strategies were assessed with the Ways of Coping Questionnaire developed by Lazarus and Folkman. According to the results of the study, patients’ adherence to treatment declined six months after CABG. Those patients who remained adherent to therapy had harmonious and ergonomic models of preoperatively illness perception. In addition, patients who were adherent to treatment were more likely to use positive coping strategies (problem solving planning, taking responsibility, and self-control). Analysis of the correlation between patients’ perception of the disease and coping strategies established the negative correlations between harmonious model and emotion-focused coping, i.e. escape-avoidance strategies (r = -0.3, p = 0.002), ergonomic model and escape-avoidance coping (r = -0.3, p = 0.006) and cognitive distancing (r = -0.19, p = 0.001). A positive association between anxious illness perception model and escape-avoidance strategies (r = 0.31, p = 0.001) has been found. Thus, patients’ perception of illness and coping skills in the preoperative period of CABG allows predicting the poor adherence to treatment in the postoperative period.

KEYWORDS

Coronary Bypass Grafting, Coping Strategies, Patients’ Perception of Disease, Adherence