Denial in coronary disease: a way to protect oneself as well as the significant other ?
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- Patients who suffer from coronary heart diseases often experience emotions such as fear, intense distress, anxiety or depression. As humans, we learn from a very young age to use defense mechanisms to protect ourselves. One of the defense mechanisms that patients use to cope with their coronary heart disease is denial. Denial is the way in which we refuse to acknowledge the existence or gravity of a problem, or its potential consequences. This can be more or less adaptive. Few studies have investigated the factors related to denial and the characteristics of patients who will be more susceptible to use it. This thesis’ objective was to investigate those factors, based on a psychosomatic approach. 66 patients suffering from coronary heart diseases were scored on their level of denial and different sociodemographic, medical and interpersonal variables in this cross-sectional study. High variability of the scores of both denial (M = 34.98 ± 11.39) and perceived anxiety of the significant other (M = 34.18 ± 13.65) were observed. Results pointed to the fact that denial is relatively independent from most of the investigated variables, like age, gender, the fact to be in a relationship, or the medical history, making it therefore difficult to target specific populations of patients more at risk to deny. A significant result was however found when it came to the relationship between the patient and his close relatives’ perceived anxiety (rs = -.242, p = .05). This indicates the need to take the patient’s interpersonal context into account in order to understand denial. Targeting more at risk patients to deny could lead to clinical interventions for coronary heart diseases patients, by helping them to face and progressively integrate their disease.