Funcionamiento y calidad de vida en personas con enfermedades crónicas: Poder predictivo de distintas variables psicológicas

Abstract

Objectives: To assess emotional variables (anxiety, depression), cognitive variables (catastrophizing, perceived self-efficacy) and behavioral variables (coping); to know in what way these kind of variables influence health-related quality of life in people with chronic conditions; analyze if there are significant differences depending on gender or chronic disease diagnosis on psychological variables mentioned; to detect if significant differences exist in the different dimensions of health-related quality of life between normal population and people with chronic disease. Method: Descriptive-correlational study made in February and March 2015 in which 35 people participated with different diagnoses of chronic disease. 24 of them (68.6%) were female and 11 (31.4%) were males. Results: The results obtained suggest that emotional variables affect health-related quality of life, as well as perceived self-efficacy and coping strategies. We also find that people who was assessed showed significantly lower levels in health-related quality of life than general population, and that it seem to exist few differences in the variables studied between people with different diagnosis and between men and women. Conclusions: Psychological variables play an important role in the quality of life of people with chronic diseases. This shows the importance of addressed these kind of aspects. The results are consistent with others found in previous studies. Further research is needed with larger samples.