Study on the Psychological Threat of Chronic Illness and Self-Regulation Model

Purpose: Human beings have a general purpose to their daily life in terms of comfort, stability, and growth. Chronic disease however is irreversible and a threat to the above approaches to life, as well as leading an individual to have a psychological crisis. This research investigates what the psychological threat and its change is when an individual encounters a chronic disease. The relationship between psychological threat and self-regulation is also investigated. Methods: The purpose of this research is to build up “the psychological threat of chronic illness and self-regulation model” by examining the theoretical concepts of psychological threat and self-regulation. The main tools are “Threat Index—Taiwan Version” and “The Self-Regulation Inventory.” These tools are used on newly diagnosed patients with chronic disease to investigate the psychological threat of chronic illness and self-regulation. Chronic diseases included diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia in this research. Results: There are four main results in this study. First, the psychological threat of chronic illness reduced after having the chronic disease for a period of time. Second, the reduction of psychological threat of chronic illness related to the decrease of “concept exploring,” the increase of “construing both self and chronic disease as positive,” and “construing both ideal self and chronic disease as positive.” Third, “the psychological threat of chronic illness to ideal self” plays a role to activate self-regulation process. Fourth, “goal” is the basic component of self-regulation. Conclusions: The newly diagnosed patients would experience psychological threat of chronic illness, and this threat would activate self-regulation. The change of psychological threat relates to the variation of cognitive constructs of self, ideal self, and chronic Illness. Though these patients gradually realize the influence of chronic illness, they keep the goal, monitoring, and modification of self-regulation, and get improvement.