Men´s utilization of control strategies and spousal support after prostatectomy: Managing autonomy in the face of postoperative morbidities

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Following radical prostatectomy (RP), postoperative morbidities (e.g., urinary incontinence) place new challenges upon patients’ autonomy and well-being. To meet these challenges, the Life-Span Theory of Control suggests that individuals actively regulate their development by adjusting goals and by using control strategies for goal attainment. By mobilization of external help, such control-strategy use can be extended to incorporate dynamics of enacted social support. Aims of this study are the investigation of patients’ short- and longer-term changes in control- strategy use, utilization of spousal support, and long-term changes in autonomy-related goals (“Lines of Defense”). Also, these factors’ potential protective functions for patients’ and their spouses’ immediate and long-term adaptation to patients’ postoperative morbidities are studied. A total of 206 RP patients and their partners will be recruited for participation in a prospective, combined diary and questionnaire study spanning about 8 months perisurgery. Studying patients’ immediate responses to postoperative morbidity with a diary approach and their assumed general readjustment as convalescence progresses will promote new insights into the dynamics of patients’ self-regulative functioning and their influence on spouses’ well being and capacity to yield support.