The role of expressed emotion and social support in psychological adjustment to myocardial infarction

Abstract

This longitudinal study wished to assess the power of expressed emotion components and social support in predicting levels of a variety of intra-psychic concepts associated with recovery from myocardial infarction (M.I.). Such concepts include anxiety, depression, self-esteem, self-efficacy, attitudes towards disability, locus of control and attributional style. Previous research suggested that biological predictors of heart disease development might account for only 50% of the variance in M.I. occurrence, severity, and subsequent psychological recovery. Evidence from psycho-social research suggests that only certain aspects of social support and expressed emotion are associated with adjustment. Much of this research is cross sectional in nature and relies on a few, narrowly-defined outcome variables. The present study wished to address these methodological short-comings. Data was obtained from thirty patient-spouse couples soon after M.I. occurrence (Time 1), and from twenty-seven of these couples after approximately ten weeks (Time 2). Multiple regression analyses allowed the predictive power of expressed emotion and social support with regard to psychological adjustment to be assessed at both points in time. The relevance of such psycho-social concepts in predicting adjustment was compared to physical and demographic variables. Results are discussed in the light of previous research, the concept of adjustment, the age of the study sample, and limitations of the study design.