Physical contact experience and coping ability: A study of survivors of myocardial infarction

Objective. This study investigates the hypothesis that interpersonal physic al contact experience contributes importantly to the capacity to cope with stress. Design. Participants with differing physical contact experience were compar ed in respect of their coping with a standard adverse life event. Method. A total of 137 survivors of a first myocardial infarction was asses sed for their physical contact experience and/or their coping when admitted to hospital, at discharge and then 3 months later. Also, at 6 months post- infarct and 6 months post-discharge respectively, data relevant to their co ping were collected from hospitals and general practitioners. Results. The participants with satisfactory and unsatisfactory physical con tact experience did not differ on measures of stress and general coping. Ho wever, those with satisfactory experience emerged as having adjusted signif icantly better psychologically than those with negative experience in child hood and the present combined. Yet, the 'satisfactory' participants also sp ent a significant 5 days longer in hospital and increased their GP usage mo re than twice as much as their 'unsatisfactory' counterparts. Conclusions. Each kind of physical contact experience maybe linked with a d ifferent aspect of coping ability, satisfactory experience with psychologic al adjustment, and unsatisfactory experience with physical resilience.