Heart and kidney patients; correlational patterns of social support with coping strategies and subjective well-being

ABSTRACT

The prevalence of chronic diseases is exceptionally high [37.9%] among the adult population of Pakistan. Social support could play a significant role in shaping the coping strategies and determining the subjective wellbeing of chronically ill patients. This research documents the correlation patterns of social support with coping strategies and subjective well-being among Heart and Kidney Patients. The primary data was collected from four major hospitals in Lahore by using purposive sampling method. For the collection of quantitative data, a hospital-based, cross-sectional survey was conducted with 275 admitted patients [131-heart and 144-kidney]184 male and 91 female [20 to 110 years of age] by using a structured interview schedule. Pearson Product-moment Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis were performed on the data set. Strongest correlation was found between emotional and informational social support [r=.853]. Instrumental social support also indicates strong relationship with the emotional social support [r=.838]. There was a moderate positive correlation [r=.339] between behavioral coping, emotional social support and informational social support [r=.424]. Data show a negative relationship between physical coping and subjective well-being [r=.381]. Results of the study suggest that emotional [beta=.230] and informational [beta=.217] social support affect the patients' ability to actively engage in behavioral and physical coping for the subjective well-being; however, physical coping indicated negative effects [beta =-.225] on the subjective feelings of well-being. A strong correlations among four types of social support exists and behavioral coping has the strongest impact on the subjective well-being [beta=.629]