Coping and Resilience of Adolescents With Congenital Heart Disease

Abstract

BACKGROUND:Congenital heart disease has come to be regarded as a chronic rather than terminal disease owing to dramatic advances in its medical and surgical management. Thus, it is salient for healthcare providers to help adolescents with congenital heart disease increase their resilience by using effective coping strategies. OBJECTIVES:The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between resilience and task-oriented coping in Korean adolescents with congenital heart disease. METHOD:This descriptive and exploratory study was designed to explore the effectiveness of task-oriented coping for improving resilience in Korean adolescents with congenital heart disease. After approval of the institutional review board was obtained, 103 adolescents with congenital heart disease who had undergone a corrective operation or procedure for heart malformation were recruited from a congenital heart clinic between November 1, 2009, and February 28, 2010. We measured adolescents' coping strategies and resilience using the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situation and the Resilience Scale. RESULTS:Among these adolescents with congenital heart disease, resilience was significantly related to perceived economic status (P < .01), task-oriented coping (P < .01), and avoidance-oriented coping (P < 0.05). The R change of 0.30 in hierarchical linear regression analysis indicated that task-oriented coping increased the explanation of resilience by 30% (P < .001). Adolescents who used task-oriented coping reported the highest resilience compared with those who used other coping strategies. CONCLUSION:Task-oriented coping may be an effective means to increase resilience among Korean adolescents with congenital heart disease. Korean healthcare professionals and researchers should thus test programs to increase task-oriented coping, such as comprehensive education programs and support groups that encourage adolescents in the same situation to discuss issues of importance.