HEALTH-SEEKING RESOURCES AND ADAPTIVE FUNCTIONING IN DEPRESSED AND NONDEPRESSED ADULTS.
Contributors: Case Western Reserve University.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 168
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Mental Health.
Description: Depression continues to be a significant clinical problem presented to psychiatric-mental health nurses. Nursing interventions enhancing health-seeking resources in depressed clients would be particularly useful in assisting them toward more productive, healthy lifestyles. However, development of such interventions should be based on the establishment of significant relationships among health-seeking resources, intervening factors, and adaptive functioning. This study examined social interest and learned resourcefulness as health-seeking resources and their relationship to depressive symptoms, negative personal beliefs (worthlessness, powerlessness, hopelessness), and adaptive functioning in 63 depressed inpatients and 63 nondepressed individuals living in the community.

Schlotfeldt's health-seeking model provided the guiding theoretical framework for examining relationships among the variables of interest. A comparative survey design was used to contrast depressed and nondepressed adults on social interest, learned resourcefulness, negative personal beliefs, depressive symptoms, and adaptive functioning. Statistical analyses included correlations, multiple regression, and multivariate analysis of variance. Five instruments were administered: Social Interest Scale, Self-Control Schedule, Beck Depression Inventory, Cognitive Triad Index, and Community Living Skills Scale. Demographic data were collected to describe the depressed and nondepressed groups.

Findings indicated the two groups were significantly different on all measures except social interest. For both groups, higher scores on instruments measuring health-seeking resources were correlated with lower scores on negative personal beliefs and depressive symptoms and higher scores on adaptive functioning. For both groups, worthlessness emerged as a significant predictor of depressive symptoms while powerlessness and hopelessness did not. Absence of depressive symptoms emerged as a significant predictor of adaptive functioning for nondepressed persons. Learned resourcefulness emerged as a significant predictor of adaptive functioning in the depressed group.

Depressed subjects scoring high in learned resourcefulness and high in worthlessness, powerlessness, or hopelessness had higher adaptive functioning scores than those low in learned resourcefulness. Nondepressed subjects scoring high in learned resourcefulness and high in hopelessness had higher adaptive functioning scores than those with low learned resourcefulness scores. Study results support Schlotfeldt's health-seeking model. This study yields information important for the development of future psychiatric nursing interventions with depressed adults.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-08, Section: B, page: 4038.

Thesis (PH.D.)--CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY (HEALTH SCIENCES), 1992.

School code: 0499.