Page 40 - Psychology of Wounds and Wound Care in Clinical Practice ( PDFDrive )

Psychological Resources 13

such differences may include factors such as personality and
psychological resources.

Psychological Resources

Psychological resources refer to emotional and cognitive fac-
tors such as optimism, personal control, social support and
active coping all of which are known to be protective of men-
tal health (Taylor et al. 2000 ). Moreover there is evidence
that the presence of these positive features may also foster
;
good physical health (DeLongis et al. 1988 Schöllgen et al.
2011 ). Thus the presence of positive psychological resources
may act as a buffer against the impact of the negative aspects
of ill health. For example, individuals who seek information
or advice about their wound and its treatment may find this
gives them greater personal control of their health and also
decreases feelings of distress (Moffatt et al. 2011 ). The signifi-
cance of this personal control for enabling individuals to live
well with a chronic wound is demonstrated very clearly by
Probst et al. ( 2013 ), who looked at the experience of women
with fungating wounds. In this study, some of the women had
been through a very personal process of working out what
adjustments they needed to make to their lives in order to
manage their condition so as to enable them to continue to
live a normal life – going to work, seeing friends and so on.
These women seemed to have accepted the situation and the
changes they had had to make to accommodate the person
they had become. This self-efficacy – the belief that you can
do something – gave them the ability to adjust to their new
identity, taking control of the situation, and furthermore,
insisting that everyone else (including intimate partners) also
accept this new reality.
The women in Probst et al.’s study, showed what has been
termed resilience – they had successfully adapted in order to
maintain (or regain) their emotional well-being in the face of
adversity (Trivedi et al. 2011 ). Traditionally resilience
(also sometimes referred to as hardiness) has been linked to
the coping that is seen in some individuals following trau-
matic events, disasters or personal tragedy. This model sees