Recovery from heart attack: psychological hazards and coping responses of middle aged and elderly patients and spouses.

This study describes, quantifies, and compares sources of stress and coping responses of 40 heart attack patients and 32 spouses and examines whether there are age differences in stress appraisal and coping responses. Lazarus' cognitive-phenomenological paradigm of psychological stress, developmental lifespan theories and family systems theory provide the theoretical framework. Stress and coping are assessed by a card sort technique administered six months following the patient's heart attach. The design is both descriptive and correlational. Age differences in sources of stress were found for patients and spouses. Both patients and spouses used a mixture of problem-focused and emotion-controlling coping responses. However, there were not age differences in type of coping responses used. Select study variables explained 13% of the variation in patient stress scores and 72% of the variance in spouse stress scores. Recommendations for further study for nursing practice are given.