Division of Nursing Science, College of Health Sciences, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea.
J Clin Nurs. 2011 Jul;20(13-14):1880-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2010.03416.x. Epub 2011 Feb 7.
The aim of the study was to examine the relationships between uncertainty and its antecedents, including education, social support and symptom frequency in Korean patients with atrial fibrillation.
The antecedents of uncertainty were theoretically identified from Mishel's theory of uncertainty in illness. There is a need to examine empirically whether theoretically driven antecedents of uncertainty work in a way that the theory proposed.
Descriptive correlational and cross-sectional survey design.
Subjects were interviewed using structured study questionnaires. The data collected were statistically analysed by descriptive statistics and hierarchical regression analysis to determine the effects of antecedents on uncertainty.
A convenience sample of 109 subjects recruited from three academic medical centres in South Korea. The overall model significantly explained 20·1% of the variance in uncertainty. Among antecedents of uncertainty, social support was significantly associated with less uncertainty (β = -0·26), while the education was not associated with uncertainty. Persons with greater social supports perceived less uncertainty, and individuals with greater symptom frequency reported greater uncertainty (β = 0·21).
In Korean patients with atrial fibrillation, it was demonstrated that uncertainty in atrial fibrillation patients was predicted by social support and symptom frequency. Thus, the nursing strategies that reduce uncertainty which results in undesirable outcomes are required through maximising the social support patients perceived and minimising the symptom frequency. Therefore, these findings are relevant to clinical nurses who take care of patients with atrial fibrillation in terms of decreasing uncertainty that might result in patients' psychological distress. Relevance to clinical practice. The findings from this study may be beneficial for clinical nurses to understand and assess the psychosocial and emotional needs of patients with atrial fibrillation.
本研究旨在探讨韩国心房颤动患者的不确定性与其前因（包括教育、社会支持和症状频率）之间的关系。
不确定性的前因是从米舍尔的疾病不确定性理论中理论上确定的。需要实证检验理论上驱动的不确定性前因是否以该理论提出的方式起作用。
描述性相关和横断面调查设计。
采用结构化研究问卷对受试者进行访谈。收集的数据通过描述性统计和层次回归分析进行统计分析，以确定前因对不确定性的影响。
从韩国的三个学术医疗中心招募了 109 名方便样本。总体模型显著解释了不确定性的 20.1%的方差。在不确定性的前因中，社会支持与不确定性显著相关（β=-0.26），而教育与不确定性无关。社会支持较高的人感知到的不确定性较小，症状频率较高的人报告的不确定性较大（β=0.21）。
在韩国心房颤动患者中，心房颤动患者的不确定性由社会支持和症状频率预测。因此，需要通过最大限度地提高患者感知到的社会支持和最小化症状频率来制定降低不确定性的护理策略，从而减少可能导致患者心理困扰的不良后果。因此，这些发现对于照顾心房颤动患者的临床护士具有重要意义，可以帮助他们减轻可能导致患者心理困扰的不确定性。与临床实践的相关性。本研究的结果可能有助于临床护士了解和评估心房颤动患者的社会心理和情感需求。
