What is it about?
Arthritis patients in a study led by the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy were more likely to be high monitors (health detail oriented) than high blunters (health detail avoidant). Study findings suggest that the attentional coping styles of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA) tend not to be associated with self-management behaviors such as how often patients have medication related discussions with their doctors and medication adherence.
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Why is it important?
There is no cure for arthritis and patients, often faced with a range of stressors such as adjusting to fluctuations in symptoms (e.g., joint pain) and treatment (e.g., medication changes), engage in coping strategies such as accessing medication-related information. More research is needed to better understand the long term relationship between coping style and patient medication-related behaviors in order to help clarify why and when health-relevant information is likely to benefit arthritis patients.
Perspectives
When we investigated the relationship between RA and OA patients’ attentional coping styles and behaviors related to medication information we were surprised that we did not see results in accordance with the characteristic patterns outlined in the acute and chronic disease coping literature. In fact, counter to expected coping trends, we found that higher monitoring was associated with less information-receipt for RA patients and among OA patients, higher blunting was associated with more information-receipt.
Lorie Geryk
UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Medication-related Self-management Behaviors among Arthritis Patients: Does Attentional Coping Style Matter?, The Open Rheumatology Journal, September 2016, Bentham Science Publishers,
DOI: 10.2174/1874312901610010060.
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