A study to assess the level of stress and coping behaviour seen among patients with myocardial infarction at Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology Bangalore India

Abstract

A study to Assess the Level of Stress and Coping Behaviour seen among patients with Myocardial Infarction at Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology, Bangalore, India. AIMS: 1. To identify the nature and source of stress seen among the patient with Myocardial Infarction. 2. To identify the pattern of coping behaviour seen among the Myocardial Infarction patient. METHODOLOGY: Patient with myocardial infarction were assessed for level of stress using Death anxiety scale, family burden interview schedule, perceived social support appraisal scale and quality of life scale. Coping behaviour was assessed using coping behaviour scale. 300 patients were randomly selected using multistage simple random sampling by lottery method. Pilot study was conducted with 90 subjects, its findings revealed that the stress among subjects were due to inadequate knowledge about MI disease process, investigation, course outcome, death anxiety and perception of family burden. They needed psycho-education. Researcher brought out patient information booklet on ?Stress management and coping for Heart Attack? and given to the study subjects (N=300) after the data collection. RESULTS: There was stress in all MI patients only level of stress varied. Sever stress was seen in 17.7% of subjects, moderate stress was seen 33.7% of subjects and mild stress in 48.7% of subjects. All the subjects were found using coping behaviours. But highly effective coping was seen only in 4.7% of subjects, moderately effective coping was in 58% and less effective coping was in 37.3% of subjects. Stress and coping had negative correlation and the finding was significant at the level of Plt0.01. Association between coping with age, sex and place of residence, it was found that coping was associated with older age group, male MI patients and semi urban population.