Style of coping and its determinants in adults with congenital heart disease in a developing country.

Objective: The objective of this study is to compare coping strategies between adults with and without congenital heart disease and to scrutinize the associations between different available resources (e.g., social support) and adoption of certain coping strategies.

Design: The study has a cross-sectional case-control design.

Setting: The study was conducted in two university-affiliated heart hospitals in Tehran, Iran.

Patients: The participants comprised 347 persons (18-64 years) with and 353 individuals without congenital heart disease, matched by gender and age.

Outcome Measures: Coping strategies, assessed with the Utrecht Coping List-short form, were compared between both groups. Block-wise multiple regression analyses were conducted to scrutinize the associations between different independent variables (e.g., demographic/socioeconomic statuses) and adoption of certain styles of coping (dependent variables) among all participants and separately for each group.

Results: The styles of coping in the patients were comparable with those of the control group. Multivariate analyses revealed that congenital heart disease per se was not associated with style of coping except for palliative reaction pattern. The active problem-solving coping style was associated with never married marital status, parenthood, unemployment, higher level of anxiety/somatic symptoms, lower level of depressive symptoms, and better social support. The avoidance behavior style was associated with having a low income, whereas the expression of emotion style was associated with higher anxiety symptoms, experience of financial strain, and income. None of the adopted coping strategies was related to the heart disease variables.

Conclusions: The adults with congenital heart disease coped as well as adults without congenital heart disease. Marital status, parenthood, annual income, financial strain, psychological adjustment, and perceived social support were important explanatory factors in adopting a certain style of coping among adults with congenital heart disease. However, longitudinal studies with repeated measures are warranted.