Personality,Coping,and Well-Being for People Living with Chronic Hepatitis C

Abstract

The present study examined the relationships between personality, coping strategies, and health ratings to extend past research to people living with chronic hepatitis C (HCV). Participants were 35 people (11 men, 24 women; M age = 49.6 yr., SD = 10.6) living with chronic hepatitis C for an average of 9.0 yr. (SD = 6.0) since diagnosis. Participants provided descriptions of stressful situations and responded to a personality inventory, Ways of Coping Questionnaire scales (planful problem solving and escape-avoidance) and SF36 Health Survey scales measuring physical functioning and mental health. The stressful situations were judgmentally clustered into seven dimensions (diagnosis/mortality, disclosure, stigma, social and work role functioning, compounding problems, and no stress). Correlational analyses indicated strong negative relationships between escape–avoidance coping and health measures. Emotional Stability and Extraversion were positively related to both health variables, and Extraversion was negatively related to escape–avoidance coping. The results suggest that research from other contexts that has examined these relationships tended to generalize to people living with HCV.

Keywords

personality coping well-being hepatitis C

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alter

H. J.

Seeff

L. B.

(2000) Recovery, persistence, and sequelae in hepatitis C virus infection: a perspective on long-term outcome. Seminars in Liver Disease 20: 17–35.

Argyle

(1990) The happiness of extraverts. Personality and Individual Differences 11: 1011–1017.

Baglioni

A. J.

Jr. Cooper

C. L.

Hingley

(1990) Job stress, mental health, and job satisfaction among UK senior nurses. Stress Medicine 6: 9–20.

Bandura, A. (1994). Social cognitive theory and exercise of control over HIV infection. In: R. J. DiClemente & J. L. Peterson (Eds), Prevention AIDS: theories and methods of behavioral interventions (pp. 25–46). New York: Plenum Press.

Billings

A. G.

Moos

R. H.

(1981) The role of coping responses and social resources in attenuating the impact of stressful like events. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 4: 139–157.

Bogg

Roberts

(2004) Conscientiousness and health-related behaviors: a meta-analysis of the leading behavioral contributors to mortality. Psychological Bulletin 190: 887–919.

Butterfield

L. D.

Borgen

W. A.

Amundson

N. E.

Maglio

A. T.

(2005) Fifty years of the critical incident technique: 1954–2004 and beyond. Qualitative Research 5: 475–497.

Cacoub

Ratziu

Myers

R. P.

Ghillani

Piette

J. C.

Moussalli

Poynard

(2002) Impact of treatment on extra hepatic manifestations in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Journal of Hepatology 36: 812–818.

Cellar

D. F.

Miller

M. L.

Doverspike

D. D.

Klawsky

J. D.

(1996) Comparison of factor structures and criterion-related validity of coefficients for two measures of personality based on the five factor model. Journal of Applied Psychology 81: 694–704.

10.

Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2001). National hepatitis C prevention strategy. Atlanta, GA: Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved 10/20/2007 from www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/c/plan/Implement.htm.

11.

Charles

S. T.

Gatz

Kato

Pedersen

N. L.

(2008) Physical health 25 years later: the predictive ability of neuroticism. Health Psychology 27: 369–378.

12.

Cooper

C. L.

Dewe

P. J.

O’Driscoll

M. P.

(2001) Organizational stress: a review and critique of theory, research, and applications, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

13.

Costa

P. T.

McCrae

R. R.

(1985) Comparison of EPI and psychoticism scales with measures of the five-factor model of personality. Personality and Individual Differences 6: 587–597.

14.

Coughlan

Sheehan

Bunting

Carr

Crowe

(2004) Evaluation of a model of adjustment to an iatrogenic hepatitis C virus infection. British Journal of Health Psychology 9: 347–363.

15.

Coughlan

Sheehan

Hickey

Crowe

(2002) Psychological well-being and quality of life in women with an iatrogenic hepatitis C virus infection. British Journal of Health Psychology 7: 105–116.

16.

DeNeve

K. M.

Cooper

(1998) The happy personality: a meta-analysis of 137 personality traits and subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin 124: 197–229.

17.

Digman

J. M.

(1990) Personality structure: emergence of the five-factor model. Annual Review of Psychology 41: 417–440.

18.

Dunne

E. A.

Quayle

(2001) The impact of iatrogenically acquired hepatitis C infection on the well-being and relationships of a group of Irish women. Journal of Health Psychology 6: 679–692.

19.

Dunne

E. A.

Quayle

(2002) Pattern and process in disclosure of health status by women with iatrogenically acquired hepatitis C. Journal of Health Psychology 7: 565–582.

20.

Eysenck

H. J.

(1963/1998) Biological basis of personality. Nature 199: 1031–1034. Republished in Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 10, 230–231.

21.

Eysenck

H. J.

Eysenck

S. B.

(1968) Manual for the Eysenck Personality Inventory, San Diego, CA: EDITS.

22.

Flanagan

J. C.

(1954) The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin 51: 327–358.

23.

Folkman

Lazarus

R. S.

(1985) If it changes it must be a process: a study of emotion and coping during three stages of a college examination. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48: 150–170.

24.

Folkman

Lazarus

R. S.

(1988) Manual for the ways of coping questionnaire, Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

25.

Forton

D. M.

Allsop

J. M.

Cox

I. J.

Hamilton

Wesnes

Thomas

H. C.

Taylor-Robinson

S. D.

(2005) A review of cognitive impairment and cerebral metabolite abnormalities in patients with hepatitis C infection. AIDS 19: S53–S63.

26.

Freeman

A. J.

Dore

G. J.

Law

M. G.

Thorpe

Von Overbeck

Lloyd

A. R.

Kaldor

J. M.

(2001) Estimating progression to cirrhosis in chronic hepatitis C virus infection. Hepatology 34: 809–816.

27.

Ghany

M. G.

Nelson

D. R.

Strader

D. B.

Thomas

D. L.

Seeff

L. B.

(2011) An update on treatment of genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C virus infection: 2011 practice guideline by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Hepatology 54: 1433–1444.

28.

Goldberg, L. R. (1990). Standard markers of the Big-Five factor structure. Unpublished manuscript. University of Oregon and Oregon Research Institute, 1–69.

29.

Goldberg

L. R.

(1992) The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure. Psychological Assessment 4: 26–42.

30.

Goldberg

L. R.

(1993) The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American Psychologist 48: 26–34.

31.

Gray, J. A. (1987). The neuropsychology of emotion and personality. In S. M. Stahl, S. D. Iverson, & E. C. Goodman (Eds), Cognitive neurochemistry (pp. 171–190). Oxford, UK: Oxford Univer. Press.

32.

Hepworth

Krug

G. J.

(1999) Hepatitis C: a socio-cultural perspective on the effects of a new virus on a community’s health. Journal of Health Psychology 4: 237–246.

33.

Hickman

I. J.

Jonsson

J. R.

Prins

J. B.

Ash

Purdie

D. M.

Clouston

A. D.

Powell

E. E.

(2004) Modest weight loss and physical activity in overweight patients with chronic liver disease results in sustained improvements in alanine aminotransferase, fasting insulin, and quality of life. Gut 53: 413–419.

34.

Hills

Argyle

Reeves

(2000) Individual differences in leisure satisfactions: an investigation of four theories of leisure motivation. Personality and Individual Differences 28: 763–779.

35.

Hopwood

Nakamura

Treloar

(2010) Disclosing hepatitis C infection within everyday contexts. Journal of Health Psychology 15: 811–818.

36.

Hopwood

Treloar

(2008) Resilient coping: applying adaptive responses to prior adversity during treatment for hepatitis C infection. Journal of Health Psychology 13: 17–27.

37.

John, O. P. (1990). The “Big Five” factor taxonomy: dimensions of personality in the natural language and in questionnaires. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality theory and research (pp. 66–100). New York: Guilford Press.

38.

John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999) The Big Five Trait taxonomy: history, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: theory and research (pp. 102–139). (2nd ed.) New York: Guilford Press.

39.

Kammeyer-Mueller

J. D.

Scott

B. A.

Judge

T. A.

(2009) The role of core self-evaluations in the coping process. Journal of Applied Psychology 94: 177–195.

40.

Kraus

M. R.

Schafer

Csef

Scheurlen

Faller

(2000) Emotional state, coping styles, and somatic variables in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Psychosomatics 41: 377–384.

41.

Lauer

G. M.

Walker

B. D.

(2001) Hepatitis C virus infection. New England Journal of Medicine 345: 41–52.

42.

Lazarus

R. S.

Folkman

(1984) Stress, appraisal and coping, New York: Springer.

43.

Mallat

Hezode

Lotersztajn

(2008) Environmental factors as disease accelerators during chronic hepatitis C. Journal of Hepatology 48: 657–665.

44.

McHutchison

J. G.

Manns

Patel

Poynard

Lindsay

K. L.

Trepo

Albrecht

J. K.

(2002) Adherence to combination therapy enhances sustained response in genotype-1-infected patients with chronic hepatitis C. Gastroenterology 123: 1061–1069.

45.

Raison

C. L.

Demetrashvili

Capuron

Miller

A. H.

(2005) Neuropsychiatric adverse effects of interferon-α. CNS Drugs 19: 105–123.

46.

Shepard

C. W.

Finelli

Alter

M. J.

(2005) Global epidemiology of hepatitis C virus infection. Lancet Infectious Disease 5: 558–567.

47.

Steel

Schmidt

Shultz

(2008) Refining the relationship between personality and subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin 134: 138–161.

48.

Sutton

Treloar

(2007) Chronic illness experiences, clinical markers and living with hepatitis C. Journal of Health Psychology 12: 330–340.

49.

Swan, T. (2006). Care and treatment for hepatitis C and HIV coinfection. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, HIV/AIDS Bureau. Retrieved 2/27/2015 from www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/c/HRSAHIVHCV2006.pdf.

50.

Tupes, E. C., & Christal, R. E. (1961). Recurrent personality factors based on trait ratings (USAF ASD Tech. Rep. No. 61–97). Lackland Air Force Base, TX: U.S. Air Force.

51.

Tupes

E. C.

Christal

R. E.

(1992) Recurrent personality factors based on trait ratings. Journal of Personality 60: 225–251.

52.

Verna

E. C.

Brown

R. S.

Jr. (2006) Hepatitis C virus and liver transplantation. Clinics Liver Disease 10: 919–940.

53.

Walsh, M. J., Jonsson, J. R., Richardson, M. M., Lipka, G. M., Purdie, D. M., Clouston, A. D., & Powell, E. E. (2006). Non-response to antiviral therapy is associated with obesity and increased hepatic expression of suppressor of cytokine signalling 3 (SOCS-3) in patients with chronic hepatitis C, viral genotype 1. Gut, 55, 529–535.

54.

Ware

J. E.

Kosinski

Dewey

J. E.

(2000) How to score Version 2 of the SF-36 Health Survey, Lincoln, RI: Quality Metric.

55.

World Health Organization (WHO). (2015). Fact sheet hepatitis C. Geneva, Switzerland: Author. Retrieved 10/20/2015 from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs164/en/.