Coping and adjustment of spouses of critically ill patients with cardiac disease.

An acute cardiac illness represents a significant stressor to both patients and families. In a convenience sample of 100 spouses of critically ill adults, the relationships among personality factors, coping responses, social network, age, education, and emotional and physical distress were investigated. Results indicated a significant positive relationship between positive personality factors and problem-focused coping and between negative personality factors, emotion-focused coping, and emotional and physical distress. As expected, spouses who reported more negative personality factors and used greater emotion-focused coping scored higher on emotional and physical distress. Moreover, spouses who scored higher in emotional distress reported greater physical distress. No statistically significant relationships were found among the variables of personality factors, problem-focused coping, and support provided by the spouses' social network and the outcome variables of emotional and physical distress. Regression analysis revealed negative personality factors, emotion-focused coping, and education explained 52% of the variance in emotional distress. Future studies using experimental design are needed to evaluate the influence of a multitude of factors on coping and health outcome of spouses of critically ill patients with cardiac disease.