L9: chronic & terminal illness, ch 13, 14 - complete Flashcards

1
Q

what is the initial response to chronic illness? what type of coping do people engage in early on?

A
  • shock, anxiety
  • emotion-focused coping is engaged in more early on (i.e., denial)
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2
Q

what 3 factors are involved in the coping process? what are the 3 influences to the coping process?

A
  • coping process:
  1. appraisal
  2. adaptive tasks
  3. coping skills
  • factors:
  1. illness-related factors
  2. background, personal factors
  3. physical/social environments
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3
Q

what are the 2 adaptive tasks in coping, among ill people? what are the 3-4 components of each task?

A
  • related to the illness or treatment
  • cope with symptoms or disability caused by the health problem
  • adjust to the hospital environment and medical procedures/regimens
  • develop and maintain good relationships with their practioners
  • related to general psychosocial functioning
  • control negative feelings and retain a positive outlook
  • maintain a satisfactory self-image and sense of competence
  • preserve good relationships with family and friends
  • prepare for an uncertain future
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4
Q

what are 5 coping strategies found useful among cancer patients? why do some avoidance strategies prove beneficial?

A
  • social support/direct problem solving (“talked it out with someone”)
  • distancing (“I didn’t let it get to me”)
  • positive focus (“I learned something from this experience”; similar to positive appraisal)
  • cognitive escape/avoidance
  • behavioural escape/avoidance
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5
Q

what are 3 types of maladaptive coping strategies in ill individuals? why?

A
  1. rumination
  2. interpersonal withdrawal
  3. avoidant coping
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6
Q

how does denial manifest in cancer patients? what strategies do they use?

A
  1. distractive strategies: reduce distress
  2. passive escape mechanisms: decrease psychological well-being (e.g., trying not to think about it)
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7
Q

what is the relationship between depression and chronic/terminal illness? why? how can this complicate medical evaluations and future prognoses?

A
  • the longer one has a chronic/terminal illness, the greater their risk for depression and helplessness
  • can complicate because of overlapping symptoms
  • depression decreases cancer survivability
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8
Q

what are 2 factors involved in cancer stigma? what is the most heavily stigmatized cancer? what are its effects?

A
  • factors involved in cancer stigma
    1. extent to which an individual’s identity and sense of self are affected by the diagnosis
    2. perceived controllability and visibility of cancer
  • most heavily stigmatized cancer: lung cancer
  • effects: motivation to seek out treatment, see doctor, tell others, cancer screening
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9
Q

what are 3 tasks that are made to adapt to chronic conditions?

A
  1. mastery of demands directly related to ongoing management of the disease
  2. minimizing physical limitations and disability
  3. preserving as much positive functioning as possible
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10
Q

what is quality of life and what is it based on?

A
  • the degree of excellence that one evaluates to exist in their life
  • based on physical, psychological, vocational, and social functioning
  • emphasis is based on daily living
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11
Q

how is quality of life evaluated? what is this referred to in research? why is this type of evaluation so useful?

A
  • self-report likert-type scales
  • subjective health
  • high predictive validity in the rates of morbidity and mortality
  • associated with prevalence, mortality, onset of all disease
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12
Q

is subjective health consistent with objective health? why or why not?

A
  • yup
  • because the patient can put on a holistic lens, consider a wide breadth of factors, and evaluate their life as a whole
  • it also includes emotional factors, which can result in better life behaviour
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13
Q

why has the predictive validity of self-reported health increased over time?

A
  • more access to health resources
  • so they’re better at assessing their own stress
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14
Q

give at least 4 reasons why caregiving is a chronic stressor (8 total)

A
  • not having time to care for yourself
  • engaging in unhealthy behaviours
    -disrupted or insufficient sleep
  • poor stress management and preventation
  • degrading social relationships and poor support
  • increase in economic cost
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15
Q

what are 3 health costs of caregiving? what are the health outcomes of caregivers? why?

A
  • higher levels of depression and physical health problems in caregivers when compared with non-caregivers
  • spouse caregivers who reported strain were at risk for premature mortality
  • abnormal measures of endocrine and immune system function
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16
Q

why is it important to study caregiving in this day and age?

A
  • aging population resulting in more and more people needing caregiving
  • less people available to provide caregiving
  • family members will need to increase their efforts to keep up with care need
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17
Q

after being diagnosed with a seriously life-threatening illness, what is the main issue of concern?

A
  • mortality
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18
Q

what is the life expectancy for a high-mortality disease? what does this result in?

A
  • can be months away, can be years away
  • the uncertainty becomes a source of stress
19
Q

why can optimism and hope cause detrimental health outcomes in terminal illness? what are 2 types of care that this leads to? Why is this an issue?

A
  • aggressive care
  • futile care: care that is provided even though there is pretty much no chance of having an impact
  • problem because it can reduce quality of life/life expectancy
20
Q

how does self-blame affect coping and responses to health problems?

A
  • those who blame themselves tend to cope poorly, showing higher levels of depression over time than patients with less self-blame
  • over time, this rumination and catastrophizing may lead to poor outcomes
21
Q

how are the actions of family members important in participants adapting to illnesses?

A
  • patients are more likely to adapt well to a chronic condition if their family members participate actively in their treatment regimens, encourage them to be self-sufficient, and respond to their needs in a caring and sensitive manner
22
Q

what are 6 coping strategies for chronic health problems? what are the effects of each strategy?

A
  1. denying/minimizing the seriousness of the situation (emotional coping)
  2. seeking info (problem-focused coping)
  3. learning to provide one’s own medical care (sense of control)
  4. setting concrete limiting goals (meaning)
  5. recruiting instrumental and emotional support from family, friends, and practitioners (relational coping)
  6. gaining a manageable perspective (meaning)
23
Q

what are 3 ways that stress and anxiety plays into asthma?

A
  • stress can produce/aggravate asthma attacks/episodes
  • anxiety increases symptom perception
  • catastrophizing/appraising something as an asthma attack increases anxiety and symptoms of respiratory illness
24
Q

how are 2 ways that having epilepsy affect one’s social life?

A
  • the “strangeness” of an epileptic episode stigmatizes them
  • is associated with cognitive and motor impairments that can limit eligibility for certain activities and jobs
25
Q

what is the main challenge after spinal cord injury?

A
  • make the most of their remaining abilities
  • lead as full a life as possible
26
Q

what are 2 psychosocial factors that increase compliance?

A
  1. self-efficacy
  2. social support
27
Q

what are 4 psychosocial issues that decrease compliance, with reference to diabetes?

A
  1. weight gain caused by insulin
  2. incompatible dietary recommendations with certain ethnic groups
  3. frustration due to glucose being off target, despite being “good”
  4. lack of importance due to diabetes not being painful
28
Q

what is the cycle between emotions and arthritis symptomology? give examples

A
  • symptoms cause stress
  • stress increases symptoms
29
Q

how does control help with dealing with arthritis?

A
  • helps their emotional adjustment
  • those who believed they could control their daily symptoms reported less mood disturbance than those who did not
  • those who saw themselves as active partners in decisions about their medical care and treatment showed better adjustment
30
Q

how does a parent’s perception of a health problem change once their child has the illness?

A
  • parents perceive a problem as less severe once their child has the illness
31
Q

what are 6 adjustment problems in chronic illness

A
  • physical
  • vocational (education/career)
  • self-concept
  • social (activities, changed relationships)
  • emotional (denial, anxiety, depression)
  • compliance
32
Q

what are behavioural methods to enhance adherence?

A
  • tailoring the regimen to make it as compatible as possible with the person’s habits
33
Q

what are self-management programs? what are their purpose? what is an important feature of its approach?

A
  • provides info and trains patients in behavioural and cognitive skills to enhance their ability to carry out their regimens
  • create and adapt to the new behaviours or life roles the health condition requires
  • cope with their emotions
  • important feature: teaches problem-solving skills
34
Q

what are 2 ways that cognitive processes affect a person’s management of chronic health problems?

A
  • problem-solving training
  • help clients reduce anxiety and other negative emotions they experience when they don’t know how to solve many of their everyday difficulties
  • teaches new strategies for thinking through medical problem situations that arise
  • cognitive restructuring
  • clients discuss incorrect thoughts and beliefs and learn ways to cope better by thinking more constructively/realistically
35
Q

how are interpersonal therapies designed to help?

A
  • help people change the way they interact with and perceive their social environments
  • by gaining insights about their feelings and behaviour toward other people
  • especially useful in helping patients deal with their anxieties and changed self-concepts or relationships with family and friends
36
Q

what is family therapy?

A
  • has family meet as a group
  • examine and change interaction patterns among family members
37
Q

what are 3 cognitive adjustments that people make in response to high-mortality illnesses over a long period of time? what does this result in?

A
  1. positive reappraisals to their life sitautions
  2. gain sense of control over their illnesses
  3. restore their self-esteem
  • promotes adaption: the greater their degree of patients’ positive reappraisals after cancer diagnosis, the better their perceived health and psychosocial functioning months later
38
Q

what are the 3 ways that form the link between negative emotions and heart disease?

A
  1. less healthy lifestyle when they experience negative emotions
  2. negative emotions have physiological effects that promote heart disasease
  3. shared genetic factors might increase vulnerability to both heart disease and negative emotions
39
Q

what are the findings of positive emotions and cardiovascular health?name and describe 2 theories that help explain this link

A
  • broaden-and-build theory:
  • positive emotions broaden the scope of attention, cognition, and action of a person over time
  • this helps the person see more options in stressful situations, consider more alternative, and have a greater variety of coping responses at their disposal
  • positive emotions help a person build up reserves of energy and social resources
  • undoing hypothesis
  • positive emotions serve their adaptive role In stress by “undoing” the negative impact of stress on cardiovascular heealth
40
Q

what are 4 ways that cancer patients can find better adaption to their disease and higher quality of life?

A
  • involved in decisions about their treatment and follow-up
  • have relatively high levels of perceived control
  • use active problem-solving strategies rather than avoidance coping
  • found meaning
41
Q

what is the main factor in the success of the cognitive-behaiouvral stress management methods? what are the 2 ways that this program improves their adjustment?

A
  • main factor: the patient’s learning skills that allow them to relax at will
  • how the program improves their adjustment:
  1. reduced prevalence of depression, increased their use of positive reprisal strategies
  2. enhanced immune function
42
Q

what are the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction methods?

A
  • reduce emotional distress
43
Q

what are 4 factors that has been suggested to be the focus of pscychosocial interventions in cases of impending death

A
  • valuing the present moment
  • creating a living legacy
  • enhancing control
  • finding meaning and purpose in one’s life
44
Q

what are the effects of psychosocial interventions on long-term and short-term survival?

A
  • short-term: benefits to survival
  • long-term: doesn’t prolong cancer patients’ survival