Psychological thriving among Latinas with chronic illness

This study utilizes a 3-year longitudinal design to explore factors that pr omote thriving among Latinas facing multiple adversity: poverty and chronic illness (specifically, arthritis). From a thriving paradigm,focus is place d on understanding the positive growth and thriving experiences reported by respondents, as well as the social, cultural, and personal resources that promote thriving. In the baseline interview, we employed a qualitative meth odology to understand women's experiences of thriving. Women reported a var iety of such experiences, the most frequent being enhanced appreciation of life. In the follow-up study, we created a thriving scale based on response s generated at the initial interview and prior research, then examined whic h of a number of social/cultural and personal factors predicted thriving 3 years after the initial assessment Only measures of competence (self-esteem and self-efficacy) and psychological well-being were related to thriving. Path analyses testing the causal sequence of these variables revealed that negative affect contributed to decreased self-efficacy and self-esteem, but it did not have a direct or indirect effect on thriving. Greater self-este em positively predicted thriving. In contrast positive affect did not contr ibute to either measure of competence, but had a direct effect on thriving. Results suggest that psychological well-being (not ill-being) promotes thr iving.