IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v40y1995i1p125-130.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Positive life orientation and recovery from myocardial infarction

Author

Listed:
  • Agarwal, Manju
  • Dalal, A. K.
  • Agarwal, D. K.
  • Agarwal, R. K.

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between positive life orientation (PLO) and recovery from a recent myocardial infarction (MI), i.e. heart attack. PLO was defined as a predisposition to selectively focus one's attention on the brighter side of any situation. An 11-item measure of PLO was developed. Seventy male patients of first MI receiving treatment at a local government hospital were interviewed twice, 4-5 days after their first heart attack (time 1) and a month after their first heart attack (time 2). The interview schedule consisted of measures of PLO, perceived recovery, expected recovery, helplessness, personal control and mood state. At time 1 all these measures were administered but at time 2 measures of only PLO, personal control, perceived recovery and mood state were administered. In addition, the attending doctor assessed the patients' medical recovery at time 1. Results showed positive correlation of patients' PLO scores with their medical recovery, perceived recovery, expected recovery, personal control and mood state but negative with helplessness. PLO scores were not influenced by patients' age, education, or income. Patients' scores on PLO at two time points were not significantly different and were positively correlated. Their scores on sense of personal control and perceived recovery increased significantly at time 2. Significant intercorrelations among variables, under study, often reduced to insignificance on partialling out PLO. PLO, thus emerged as an important factor in recovery from MI.

Suggested Citation

  • Agarwal, Manju & Dalal, A. K. & Agarwal, D. K. & Agarwal, R. K., 1995. "Positive life orientation and recovery from myocardial infarction," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 125-130, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:40:y:1995:i:1:p:125-130
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(94)E0058-Z
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin A. Smallheer & Michael Vollman & Mary S. Dietrich, 2018. "Learned Helplessness and Depressive Symptoms Following Myocardial Infarction," Clinical Nursing Research, , vol. 27(5), pages 597-616, June.
    2. Pilar Sanjuán & Ángeles Ruiz & Ana Pérez, 2011. "Life Satisfaction and Positive Adjustment as Predictors of Emotional Distress in Men With Coronary Heart Disease," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 12(6), pages 1035-1047, December.
    3. Namita Pande & Shruti Tewari, 2011. "Understanding Coping with Distress due to Physical Disability," Psychology and Developing Societies, , vol. 23(2), pages 177-209, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:40:y:1995:i:1:p:125-130. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.