STRESS-RESISTANCE IN RELOCATED FAMILIES: HARDINESS AND HEALTHY FAMILY FUNCTIONING AS MEDIATORS OF THE STRESS-STRAIN RELATIONSHIP.
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 231
Subjects: Sociology, Individual and Family Studies.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Fifty-three relocated executive families in Texas, composed of a wife, husband, and teenager, responded to mailed questionnaires exploring whether hardiness and family functioning served as mediators or buffers of the stress-strain relationship, possibly protecting health. Eight hypotheses were tested. As hypothesized, hardiness (Kobasa, 1984) and SFI family functioning (Beavers, 1985) were significantly correlated with teen symptoms of stress when considered as member scores rather than as family aggregate scores. Husband hardiness correlated significantly $(-.40)$, as did teen ratings of SFI family functioning (.42), with teen Symptoms of Stress. Through multiple regression on the family aggregate Symptoms of Stress, the mediating or buffering role was supported for husband hardiness but not family functioning. The effect of SFI appeared independently important for health, despite no interaction with the life events measure, FILE (McCubbin, Patterson, and Wilson, 1981). Hardiness and SFI family functioning, the two proposed mediators, showed an interaction effect with one another in a multiple regression on the family aggregate of Symptoms of Stress. Multiple regression indicated that the three significant predictors of family aggregate Symptoms of Stress were: time since move, (symptoms being higher in the second year), husband hardiness, and teen ratings of SFI family functioning. Predictors of member symptoms varied only slightly from predictors of family aggregate symptoms. Gender differences were apparent in methods of coping with stress: husbands and male teens indicating preferred use of more active, external methods, while wives and female teens reported preference for more passive, internal, and solitary methods of coping.

On discriminant analysis, the variables which significantly discriminated high symptom, from low symptom families were hardiness of parents, time since move, SFI family functioning, the wife's number of stresses, and wife and teen anger, anxiety, and cognitive disorganization. Overall, the findings supported husband hardiness and healthy family functioning as being positively connected with the health of these relocated families, and suggest the value of further validation so that nursing and corporate strategies could be developed to help protect the health of those who relocate.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-04, Section: A, page: 0962.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1987.

School code: 0227.