Contribution of psychosocial factors to the outbreak and course of acute viral hepatitis--report of a pilot study
Paar, G.H.; Schaefer, A.; Drexler, W.
Psychotherapie Psychosomatik Medizinische Psychologie 37(1): 23-30
1987
ISSN/ISBN: 0937-2032 PMID: 3562754 Document Number: 299008
In a pilot study the healing process of altogether 18 acute diseased hepatitis patients (virus hepatitis) was compared to a contrast group of 8 persons (accident patients) during they stay in hospital. With the group of hepatitis patients there was a distinction between those who were healed without any complications and those who had some delays in their healing process. By before and after-measurements the following variables were compiled: Life events, chronic life events social support, coping mechanisms and the mood of the patients. The evaluation showed that the delayed recovering hepatitis patients were exposed more to chronic life events and were during their hospitalization confronted with relatively more life events. At the same time it seemed as if with those patients the depressive mood, generally observed with all patients, did not diminish during their healing process as it was the case with the other groups. The results point out, that the hepatitis patients could more precisely predict the extent of their social support from the beginning of their hospitalization than the control group. In hospital accident patients experienced a greater amount of unexpected social support by their reference group, whereas there was a lower engagement between hepatitis patients and their network members. Furthermore it could be seen that the hepatitis patients generally behavior patterns of this was the case with their contrast group.