PREDICTORS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESILIENCE AMONG HYPERTENSION AND DIABETICS

Abstract

Diagnosis of a health condition such as hypertension and diabetes can be very stressful and leave patients with a roller coaster of emotions. Moving past the initial shock of diagnosis, there is a need to learn to manage and adjust to the pressures that come with it, validating the need for resilience, which refers to the ability of individuals to cope with challenges and successfully adapt to adverse situations. This study seeks to examine personality characteristics as a predictor of psychological resilience among diabetes and hypertensive patients. The sample comprised of people with hypertension and diabetes, purposive sampling method was used in the selection of participants. One hundred and sixty six (166) patients were selected with age ranging from eighteen (18) years to ninety two (92) years, sixty five (65) males and one hundred and one (101) females, sixty two (62) were diabetic, seventy six (76) were hypertensive, twelve (12) were diabetic and hypertensive. The sample population consisted of patients who have been receiving treatment for at least 3 months prior to this study. The result shows that extraversion (t= -.48 p<.05) does not predict psychological resilience, agreeableness (t = -1.18 p<.01). Also, conscientiousness (t = -.74 p>.05) does not significantly predict psychological resilience, neuroticism does not significantly predict psychological resilience (t = -.96 p>.05), openness to experience (t = 2.12 p<.05) significantly predicts psychological resilience. Openness to experience and agreeableness were the only predictors of psychological resilience in the study. This work contributes to the study of resilience and related factors by attempting to understand the role of personality characteristics on psychological resilience and its implication on chronic diseases.