Article

OBJECTIVE: To replicate the finding that illness perceptions influence quality of
life in adults with muscle disease and to explore the additional influence of
coping and optimism on quality of life and mood.
DESIGN: A postal survey
including questionnaires recording quality of life, mood, illness perceptions,
optimism, coping and functional impairment.
SETTING: National Health Service
muscle clinics in the United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS:
A convenience sample of
adults with muscle disease. Interventions: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:
Individualised Neuromuscular Quality of Life Questionnaire, Hospital Anxiety and
Depression Scale. RESULTS: A total of 226 completed questionnaires were returned.
Although functional impairment explained most of the variance in three out of
eight quality of life domains, psychological factors explained greater amounts of
variance (between 19% and 52% of variance) in all other quality of life domains
and in both mood domains (between 45% and 48% of variance). Overall, illness
perceptions explained much of the variance in quality of life and mood score
(between 5% and 37% of variance), while coping (up to 8% of variance) and
optimism (up to 15% of variance) explained smaller amounts of variance.
CONCLUSION: The results confirm that illness perceptions are associated with
quality of life in muscle disease and suggest that they also influence mood. The
addition of optimism and coping variables into the analysis yielded small
increases in the proportions of variance in quality of life and mood which were
explained. These results have implications for the composition of future
psychological interventions.

Langue : ANGLAIS