The Association of Dyadic Symptom Appraisal With Physical and Mental Health Over Time in Care Dyads Living With Lung Cancer

Abstract

The study examined the association between changes in dyadic symptom appraisal with changes in physical and mental health of 109 family care dyads living with lung cancer over 12 months. Multilevel modeling was used to analyze both aggregate and time-varying associations of dyadic symptom appraisal with dyadic health. Patients had significantly worse physical health compared with their care partner; care partners had significantly worse mental health compared with patients. In general, greater incongruent symptom appraisals were significantly associated with worse physical health for both patients and care partners. Importantly, increases in magnitude of incongruence regarding the patient’s pain interference were significantly associated with declines in patient physical health over time. Direction of the incongruence was associated with mental health. Findings highlight the need for both a longitudinal and dyadic perspective of symptom appraisal to move toward theoretically driven interventions that will optimize the health of both patients and their care partners.

Understanding the family care dyad: A comparison of two multilevel models

“…See Table 5 for extensions of each method as well as cited examples of each. 12,14,26,29,30,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]…”

Dyadic appraisals, dyadic coping, and mental health among couples coping with stroke: A longitudinal study protocol

“…As the model focus on the transactional and interdependent nature between couples facing chronic illness, it is widely applied to research on dyadic perspective of illness (Checton, Magsamen‐Conrad, Venetis, & Greene, 2014; Li & Loke, 2015). Previous studies have supported this model that dyadic appraisal and DC both play important roles in dyadic mental health (Gellert et al, 2018; Helgeson et al, 2019; Lyons & Lee, 2020; Lyons et al, 2016).…”

“…Theoretical and practical studies indicated that chronic disease, such as cancer and heart failure, can be viewed as a dyad event, which affects the physical, psychological, and social functions of patients and their spouses (Helgeson, Jakubiak, Van Vleet, & Zajdel, 2017). Dyadic appraisal of disease and its related problems play an important role in this process (Lyons & Lee, 2020). Shared dyadic appraisal can promote patients and spouses to participate in disease management behaviour together to deal with the dyad pressure caused by disease and then promote dyadic health (Lyons, Miller, & McCarthy, 2016).…”

“…It describes that share dyadic appraisal is critical to facilitate the dyad engagement in illness management. Thus far, several studies (Lee et al, 2015, 2017; Lyons & Lee, 2020) have examined the association between dyadic appraisal and dyadic mental health and most of those have focused on the incongruence and congruence of dyadic appraisal. Studies (Lee et al, 2017; Lyons et al, 2018; Lyons, Johnson, & Lee, 2020) showed that congruent appraisal of illness contribute to more dyadic illness management behaviours, which process plays an essential role in optimizing dyadic health outcomes.…”

A Multilevel Modeling Approach to Examine Incongruent Illness Appraisals in Family Care Dyads Over Time

“…In many cases, effective symptom recognition and management are vital to preventing costly and unnecessary hospitalizations (Goldberg et al, 2010;Lyons, Sadowski & Lee, 2020;Zhang & Siminoff, 2003). Similar appraisal of the illness within the care dyad has been found to increase the dyad's ability to collaborate and jointly manage the illness together, cope as a unit, and experience better outcomes (Acitelli & Badr, 2005;Berg et al, 2008;Lee et al, 2017;Lehman et al, 2011;Li & Loke, 2014;, 2020aMerz et al, 2011;Trief et al, 2004;Zhang & Siminoff, 2003). Without first examining how members of the care dyad converge or diverge in their appraisal of the illness, however, an important part of illness management is overlooked that may hinder the design of effective dyadic interventions to improve clinical and familial outcomes.…”