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Illness representations and psychological adjustment of Greek couples dealing with a recently-diagnosed cancer: dyadic, interaction and perception-dissimilarity effects

Journal of Behavioral Medicine volume 39, pages 85–93 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

The aim was to examine the impact of the dyadic, interaction and dissimilarity effects of the illness representations on the psychological health of recently diagnosed cancer patients and spouses in Greece. The sample consisted of 298 individuals nested in 149 couples. Effects were examined with the Actor–Partner Interdependence Model. Both actor (i.e., within person) and partner (i.e., between partners) effects were detected for both patients’ and spouses’ psychological symptoms. The negative association of patients’ psychological symptoms with their representations of illness coherence was weak at the higher and medium levels, and stronger at the lower levels of spouse corresponding representations. Patient–partner discrepancy in perceived illness consequences was associated with more psychological symptoms in patients. Adaptation to cancer is a dyadic process within the context of which patient and partner psychological well-being is affected by each other’s understanding of illness. Thus, the parallel examination of the illness representations of both partners is needed from the early phases of the illness trajectory.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre, 32, Akropoleos Av., 2006, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Zoe Giannousi

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece

    Evangelos C. Karademas & Georgia Dimitraki

Authors
  1. Zoe Giannousi
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  2. Evangelos C. Karademas
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  3. Georgia Dimitraki
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Correspondence to Zoe Giannousi.

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Zoe Giannousi, Evangelos C. Karademas and Georgia Dimitraki declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and animal rights and Informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Giannousi, Z., Karademas, E.C. & Dimitraki, G. Illness representations and psychological adjustment of Greek couples dealing with a recently-diagnosed cancer: dyadic, interaction and perception-dissimilarity effects. J Behav Med 39, 85–93 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-015-9664-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-015-9664-z

Keywords

  • Cancer
  • Oncology
  • Illness representations
  • Dyadic effects
  • Perception dissimilarity effects