THE RELATIONSHIP OF COGNITIVE DISTORTION AND DISABILITY IN RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS.
Contributors: University of New Mexico.
Published: 1988
Number of pages: 194
Subjects: Psychology, Clinical.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Individuals with the same severity of chronic disease show remarkably different levels of disability. Cognitive processes (appraisals) are thought to explain individual differences in responses to comparable stressful conditions such as chronic illness. When an individual believes his or her vital interests are at stake and is under intense and prolonged stress, the "primitive egocentric cognitive system" may be activated, and specific idiosyncratic cognitive schemas become hyperactive. The individual is then prone to make "extreme, one-sided, absolutistic and global judgments," or in other words, cognitive errors. Since chronic illness consists of continuous low grade stressors and resultant mental and physical fatigue, it seems likely that an individual with a chronic illness would be somewhat prone to cognitive distortion. When an individual's appraisal of the situation differs from reality, the ability to cope in a constructive manner may be decreased, ultimately affecting the individual's level of disability.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between the degree of cognitive distortion and the level of disability in rheumatoid arthritis patients. The Sickness Impact Profile, Lefebvre's Cognitive Error Questionnaires (the LBP version was revised), and the Kellner Symptom Questionnaire were administered to 165 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatologists rated the severity of their patients' arthritis according to American Rheumatism Association's staging criteria. Data was analyzed using multivariate regression analyses.

The data indicate that there is a significant relationship between cognitive distortion and disability in rheumatoid arthritis patients, even when depression is controlled; however, the stage of the individual's disease appears to influence this relationship. Arthritis overgeneralization was the type of cognitive error that appeared to be the most strongly correlated with physical disability. The data also indicate that there is a significant linear relationship between cognitive distortion and depression in Stage II and Stage III. In addition, the tendency to cognitively distort in general situations also appears to be moderately related to the tendency to cognitively distort in arthritis-related situations.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-08, Section: B, page: 3432.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, 1988.

School code: 0142.