The Influence of Personality on Health -Specific and Global Psychological Well -Being Perceptions of Cardiac Rehabilitation Patients

191 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999.Subjects for this study were 72 cardiac patients recruited from 2 local hospital Phase II cardiac rehabilitation programs. Results indicated that extraversion and neuroticism were associated with global and health-specific well-being measures in the anticipated direction. More specifically, extraverted patients (compared with introverted patients) reported higher levels of well-being, and lower levels of psychological distress at program entry. Neurotic patients (compared to non-neurotic patients) reported compromised levels of well-being and higher levels of psychological distress. After controlling for well-being levels from program entry, neuroticism alone was predictive of compromised well-being and higher levels of psychological distress at program completion, beyond disease severity and well-being/distress from program entry. This finding has practical significance in light of the literature that cites compromised well-being and psychological distress as representing significant and serious threats to ongoing health status. The results of this study suggest that measures of neuroticism may be of value aiding in the early identification of patients at risk for psychosocial disturbance, despite therapeutic interventions such as cardiac rehabilitation.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD