Researcher(s)
- Jessica Blumberg, Psychology, University of Delaware
Faculty Mentor(s)
- Jean-Philippe Laurenceau, Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware
Abstract
Successfully managing type 2 diabetes (T2D) requires significant lifestyle adjustments for patients. As diabetes introduces a new stressor within a patient’s life, coping strategies are important for the problems and emotions that can present with it. For cohabiting committed couples where one member has been diagnosed with a chronic illness, coping may be more likely to be interpersonal than just individual. Even though it is only the patient who physically lives with the illness, both members of the couple experience and adjust to it. In the context of T2D, communal coping refers to both members of the couple perceiving and engaging with a stressor as a joint problem rather than as an individual problem. Past research has identified the positive impacts that intimate partners can have on the self-care and management of a person with diabetes. However, it remains unclear whether or not communal coping improves glycemic control in people with T2D. Sixty-two couples (121 patients and their partners) sat for two transcribed discussions. Half of the transcripts underwent preliminary thematic analysis through both human analysis and NVivo, a qualitative data analysis software. Themes were derived from the transcripts that were consistent with previous research, including partner support or lack of support, person with diabetes and partner collaboration, partner controlling behavior, person with diabetes independent management, and engagement or disengagement from diabetes by the person with diabetes. First-person plural pronouns were counted as well. Simple descriptive statistics were generated to show the distributions and frequency of themes among the transcripts. It is hypothesized that these themes are linked to glycemic control and can be integrated into a useful framework to study communal coping within a health context.