A qualitative study of coping in the early stage of acute traumatic hand injury

Abstract

Twenty patients with acute traumatic hand injury were interviewed 8-20 days after the day of the accident. The aim of the study was to identify coping strategies, defined as thoughts or actions used by the hand-injured patients to manage stress factors and resulting emotions in the early stage. Stress factors were reported in an earlier study. The analyses of the interviews followed the first steps in the analytical process described in a modified model of grounded theory. Eleven different coping strategies were identified in the interviews. By "comparing with something worse", "positive thinking", "relying on personal capacity", "distancing" and "distracting attention" the patients tried to play down the seriousness of the problem or situation. Other coping strategies used by the hand-injured were "accepting the situation", "seeking social support", "maintaining control", "solving practical problems by oneself", "pain-relieving actions" and "active processing of the trauma experience." The findings of the study show how important it is to identify the patient's own way of coping with a stressful illness situation in order to give adequate psychosocial support.

Improving recovery—Learning from patients’ experiences after injury: A qualitative study

“…26 This research confirms the importance of social support for facilitating recovery from injury. [27][28][29] Support from friends, family and neighbours was regarded by participants as extremely important especially during the first few weeks/months after leaving hospital. This is when many were incapacitated and simple everyday tasks were difficult, or for some impossible to achieve.…”

Patient–staff agreement in the perception of spinal cord lesioned patients' problems, emotional well-being, and coping pattern

“…Self-trust, problem focusing, acceptance, minimization, and social trust have been found to be positively related to indices of quality of life, while fatalism, resignation, and protest have been found to have negative relations. [17][18][19][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] The respondents rated each item on a six-step response scale ranging from 'I always think or act like this' to 'I never think or act like this'. The staff was asked to respond as they thought their matched patient would.…”

Coping strategies in daily occupations 3 months after a severe or major hand injury

“…The consequences of a serious hand injury may lead to impaired physical function (Rosén, 1996;Craigen et al, 1999;Bialocerkowski, 2002;Gustafsson et al, 2002;Gustafsson and Ahlstrom, 2004) and to psychological and social problems (Meyer, 2003;Rumsey et al, 2003). Trauma-related distress and mood disorders can also affect patients after a hand injury (Gustafsson et al, performance after a hand injury may affect a person's occupational pattern (CAOT, 2007) and require considerable changes in daily occupations to cope with.…”