Stressors, social support, coping, and health dysfunction in individuals with Parkinson's disease

The purposes of this descriptive correlational study were to describe the illness-related stressors of individuals with Parkinson's disease and to report the extent to which social support and coping responses predict physical and psychosocial health dysfunction. The sample consisted of 70 men and women, age 44 to 80, residing in the community. Participants reported a variety of illness-related stressors, most of which occurred on a daily basis and involved some loss in functional abilities. Less perceived availability of social support, more evasive coping, and more confrontive coping predicted greater health dysfunction, suggesting that these factors may be important to consider when assessing individuals with Parkinson's disease and designing interventions for individuals with functional declines.