A longitudinal study on coping and emotional well-being in cardiac patients

Emotions and coping play a role in the prognosis of cardiac patients. This two-wave longitudinal study aims to analyze the ability of adaptive and maladaptive coping to predict the emotional well-being of cardiac patients after controlling for their functional physical capacity. Emotional well-being (positive and negative affect), coping strategies, and functional physical capacity were evaluated both at Time 1 (n = 253) and at Time 2 (n = 186), 8 weeks later. At Time 1, positive affect was positively predicted by adaptive coping and negatively predicted by maladaptive coping, while the opposite pattern was found when negative affect was considered. At Time 2, after controlling for sociodemographic variables and for negative affect and functional physical capacity at T1, negative affect was negatively predicted by adaptive coping and positively predicted by maladaptive coping. In addition, positive affect was only predicted by adaptive coping after controlling for functional physical capacity and positive affect at Time 1. Relationships between coping and emotional well-being remain after controlling for the functional physical capacity of cardiac patients, which has a big impact on their emotional state. Finally, it is suggested that specific modules to improve coping and emotional state of cardiac patients should be included in Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs.

Automated summary

This study found that the analysis of emotions and coping strategies is important in predicting the psychological well-being of cardiac patients. The results showed that adaptive coping positively predicted positive affect and negatively predicted negative affect, while maladaptive coping had the opposite pattern. These relationships remained even after controlling for functional physical capacity. It is suggested that specific modules to improve coping and emotional state should be included in Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs.