The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of uncertainty in illness and use of coping methods on emotional distress and recovery following myocardial infarction. A longitudinal exploratory design with measures obtained at three times was used; multiple regression was used to analyze the data. Uncertainty explained a significant amount of the variance in emotional distress prior to hospital discharge (21%), and 1 (16%) and 4 (26%) weeks after discharge. Patients reporting greater uncertainty also reported more emotional distress. One week after discharge, coping behaviors significantly added to the variance explained in distress (27%). Greater use of emotive coping behaviors was associated with higher levels of emotional distress and accounted for the majority of the variance explained by coping behaviors (23%). The findings are discussed in terms of the nature of uncertainty in health care and future model development.
Health care technology occurs in the cultural and organizational context of users and providers and thus is inherently neither "good" or "bad." Situated at the midpoint of the technologic-humanistic dualism, registered nurses facilitate the coalescence of technology and humanism in nursing practice. This coalescence does not just happen and does not come easily. It requires both caring and expertise and is facilitated by education, clinical practice, research, and administrative considerations. This coalescence may indeed lead to some of the most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century in terms of what it means to be human.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.