SOCIAL AND PERSONAL COPING RESOURCES AS PREDICTORS OF QUALITY-OF-LIFEIN CARDIAC PATIENTS

Quality of life after surgery can be improved by optimistic self-belie fs and social support. Patients (N=248) undergoing heart surgery were surveyed once before and twice after surgery. Study 1 examined whether presurgical personal and social resources would predict quality of li fe one week after heart surgery. Synergistic affects emerged upon degr ee of worry and mental activity as quality of life indicators. Study 2 examined resources of social network members. A sample of 114 signifi cant others, most of them spouses, reported about their own resources at Time 1. The patient-spouse dyad was chosen as the unit of analysis. Spouses' optimistic self-beliefs and social support as measured at Ti me 1 predicted patients' quality of life after half a year (Time 3). T he results are discussed in terms of the ''resource transfer'' within dyads in time of stress.