How can social connectedness foster patient resilience? Implications for health care practice and health campaigns

Abstract

Background: Our goal is to disentangle the most important aspects of social connectedness fostering resilience in chronically ill across various patient groups. As we conceptualized resilience as retaining a high level of well-being even in the presence of a chronic illness, we examined which aspects of social relationships can explain the difference in patients’ life satisfaction. Methods: The Swiss Household Panel (SHP) data (wave 2013) was used for secondary data analysis. Our sample consists of 2124 participants diagnosed with a chronic illness (970 men, mean age 55). We created a regression model in order to explain life satisfaction in the chronically ill respondents. Life satisfaction is a reliable proxy of well-being as it is considered to be a cognitive measure of subjective quality of one’s life. Findings: A Multiple Linear Regression model including the following predictors: relationship satisfaction with partner, children and personal relationships in general, practical support from the partner and general trust in people explained 25,6% of the variance of the life satisfaction scores in the chronically ill people across all patient groups (R2=.256, F(6,1233)=71,553, p<0.001). Discussion: Our results indicate that receiving practical support from one’s partner is crucial in fostering patient resilience. Therefore, health care providers and campaigns ‒ which aim to promote patients’ well-being through family engagement ‒ might focus on facilitating patients’ partners to provide practical support (e.g., giving advice, guidance). Furthermore, relationship satisfaction, feeling lonely and general trust in people might be considered as potential mediators of the effects of social relationships on resilience.