Coping, Uncertainty and Health Related Quality of Life as Determinants of Anxiety and Depression on a Sample of Hospitalized Cardiac Patients in Southern Italy

Objectives:: Being hospitalized often causes psychological distress and compromises patients’ psychological well being augmenting the burden of illness. The aim of this paper is to investigate on two possible determinants of anxiety and depression among hospitalized cardiac patients, namely, uncertainty in illness, and coping strategies, controlling for the disease burden by means of a self assessed measure of health related quality of life, and distinguishing between borderline and pathological levels of anxiety and depression Methods: Anxiety, depression, coping style, uncertainty in illness and self assessed quality of life, concerning 200 cardiac inpatients from a university hospital have been collected through validated questionnaires. A biprobit analysis, whose dependent variables are hospital anxiety and depression has been carried out. Results: Uncertainty in illness has a significant impact on the possibility of crossing the borderline level of both anxiety and depression. The coping strategy of positive reappraisal and growth is inversely and significantly correlated to anxiety and depression, be it borderline or pathological, and the restraint coping strategy is positively and significantly related to borderline anxiety. Conclusions: The reduction of uncertainty in illness and the development of adequate coping strategies should be promoted to decrease the patients’ risk of crossing the borderline threshold for anxiety and depression.