EFFECTS OF SELF-EFFICACY AND SOCIAL SUPPORT ON POSTSURGICAL RECOVERY OF HEART-PATIENTS

Coping with stressful life events can be facilitated by personal and s ocial resources, such as perceived self-efficacy and social support. T his applies also to the adaptation to surgical stress and to severe di seases. Two hundred and forty-eight patients were surveyed before and after heart. surgery. Degree of worry, emotional states, reading activ ity and physical activity were chosen as characteristics of the recove ry process. Whether presurgical personal and social resources would pr edict readjustment after heart surgery was examined. Hierarchical regr ession analyses identified an interaction between the two resources, u nderscoring the existence of the well-known support buffer effect. Cov ariance structure analysis revealed that perceived self-efficacy was a better predictor of recovery than social support.