PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH IN THE BEREAVED

个体对死亡的适应有很大的差异 所爱之人的痛苦 一些最近失去亲人的人 在身体和精神健康方面表现出明显的下降，而 其他人则没有。 拟议的研究旨在调查 心理社会因素对个体情绪影响 和身体健康的影响。 的 本研究中的受试者将是患有终末期 有病的人，与当地的临终关怀有关。 我们 我们认为可以预测哪些个体 显示长期的身体和情绪疾病是基于 压力与心理健康之间关系的一般社会心理模型 健康 根据这些模型，风险最高的人 长期的身体和情绪困扰后的压力 是以一种不适应的悲观的解释风格为特征的 他们生活中的事件，社会支持差，不活跃， 关注情绪的应对方式 我们将评估这些。 在他们所爱的人去世之前， 然后用它们来预测哪些受试者会表现出最差的 1岁、6岁、13岁和18岁时的身心健康 几个月后死亡。 此外，我们将评估几个 其他可能调节受试者适应能力的变量 丧亲 其中包括可用于以下方面的财政资源： 的经济负担，以及因 病人的疾病和死亡，每个人的责任金额 受试者为照顾病人，其他人数 死亡前后经历的压力源，以及死亡前的压力源。 受试者存在身体或情感疾病。 中的每 这些因素应有助于受试者的主观体验 压力，但这些因素对情绪和 身体健康结果应该通过社会支持来调节， 应对方式和解释方式。

There is great variation in individual's adjustments to the death of a loved one form an illness. Some recently bereaved individuals show marked declines in physical and emotional health, whereas others do not. The proposed study in designed to investigate the influence of several psychosocial factors on individual's emotional and physical health following the death of a loved one. The subjects in this study will be individuals who have a terminally ill loved one, and who are associated with local hospices. Our choice of the variables we believed will predict which individuals show long term physical and emotional illness has been based on general psychosocial models of the relationship between stress and health. According to these models, persons who are at highest risk for long-term physical and emotional disturbance following stress are characterized by a maladaptive, pessimistic style of explaining the events in their lives, poor social supports, and inactive, emotion-focused coping styles. Thus, we shall assess these characteristics in subjects before the death of their loved one, and then use them to predict which subjects will show the poorest physical and emotional health at one, six, thirteen, and eighteen months following the death. In addition, we shall assess several other variables that may mediate subjects' abilities to adjust to bereavement. These include the financial resources available to subjects and the financial burden incurred as a result of the patient's illness and death, the amount of responsibility each subject had for the care of the ill patient, the number of other stressors experienced around the time of the death, and pre- existing physical or emotional illness in the subjects. Each of these factors should contribute to subjects' subjective experience of stress, but the effects of these factors on emotional and physical health outcomes should be mediated by social supports, coping styles, and explanatory styles.