Adaptation to Chronic Illness in a Puerto Rican Population

9407084兰金-希尔这个项目(与9407124，贝茨合作)支持三位文化人类学家，研究波多黎各慢性不可治愈的关节炎患者如何应对他们的疼痛和残疾。研究人员将确定一组约65名关节炎患者，并在一系列密集的采访中研究他们如何应对和管理自己的疾病。这些信息将与盎格鲁人如何应对慢性病的研究进行比较。方法包括密集的生活史访谈，检查患者记录，以及实施标准化问卷，涉及疼痛管理、应对策略和慢性病心理适应(关节炎影响评定量表、McGill疼痛问卷、生活满意度量表、种族和疼痛问卷)和控制源方式。这个项目很重要，因为它扩大了适应慢性病的模型，将种族变量包括在内。它将通过确定受试者不同环境中的应对策略、资源、限制和其他因素影响他们的整体适应水平，从而加深我们对人类适应不治之症的能力的理解。这个项目的知识将对所有寻求制定与文化相关的卫生保健提供程序的卫生保健人员有用。该项目还涉及残疾人和少数民族科学家的研究，因此有助于活跃研究人员群体的多样性。

9407084 Rankin-Hill This project (which is collaborative with 9407124, Bates) supports three cultural anthropologists studying how Puerto Rican sufferers from chronic, incurable arthritis cope with their pain and disability. The researchers will identify a group of about 65 sufferers from arthritis and in a series of intensive interviews will study how they cope with and manage their diseases. This information will be compared with the studies of how Anglo populations cope with chronic disease. Methods include intensive life history interviews, examination of patient records, and the administration of standardized questionnaires dealing with pain management, coping strategies, and psychological adjustment to chronic illness (the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scale, McGill Pain Questionnaire, Satisfaction With Life Scale, Ethnicity and Pain Questionnaire, and Locus of Control style. This project is important because it broadens the model of adaptation to chronic illness to include ethnic variables. It will add to our understanding of the human ability to adapt to incurable chronic disease by determining what coping strategies, resources, constraints and other factors in the subjects varied environments affect their overall level of adjustment. The knowledge from this project will be useful to all health care personnel seeking to develop culturally relevant health care delivery procedures. The project also involves the research of handicapped and minority scientists, and therefore contributes to the diversity of the active researcher population.