Does social support group membership help in coping with chronic diseases?

Pages: 428-435
Manoj Kumar Pandey (Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh)

This study intended to examine the role of social support groups in coping with chronic diseases such as cancer and AIDS. Mainly there are three objectives of this study, i.e., (A) Examine the role of social support groups and coping strategies in terms of positive outlook, optimism and health-esteem. (B) Examine the role of social support groups and coping with feelings associated with the diseases in terms of negative feelings and pessimism/hopelessness. (C) Examine the relationships between coping strategies in terms of positive outlook, optimism and health-esteem and feelings associated with the disease (negative feelings & pessimism/hopelessness), and (D) Find out the best predictor of coping strategies that determines maximum contribution in lowering the impact of negative feelings and a sense of pessimism/hopelessness associated with patients’ disease among member and non-members of social support groups. The sample consists of 100 people suffering from chronic diseases. There were three kinds of people taken as a sample in this study. First, who were suffering from cancer (25), second, who were suffering from HIV+/AIDS (25) and they were the people who had not joined any support-group and they were only depends on their family and friends. While, third groups were people who were suffering from HIV+/AIDS (50) but they had joined the social-support groups for such people and not only depends on their family and friends. Both male and female from rural and urban settings were taken for this study within the age range of 20 to 80 years with mean score of 35.73 years. Two type of the scale were used in this study. First scale of coping strategies which was the combination of three sub scales i.e. positive outlook, optimism and health esteem. Second scale for assess the feelings associated with disease was comprises of scale of negative feelings and pessimism/hopelessness. All these scales were based on Likert 5-point rating scale. The following results were found: (a) optimism and health esteem as coping strategies is higher in patients who were the members of social support groups in comparison to patients who didn’t join such support groups, (b) negative feelings and pessimism/hopelessness were found significant difference in patients who are the member and non-member of such social support groups, (c) positive outlook, optimism, and health esteem is lowering the impact of negative feelings and pessimism/hopelessness, and (d) optimism as a coping strategy is found more reliable (best predictor) in case of patients who belongs to social support groups and health esteem is found more reliable in case of patients who doesn’t belongs to such social support groups for reducing or coping with negative feelings and pessimism/hopelessness associated with their disease.