Suffering, Meaning and Emotional Processing in Rheumatoid Arthritis V1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Suffering, Finding Meaning and Emotional Processing in Individuals with Rheumatoid Arthritis
IRAS ID
203368
Contact name
Rosemarie Buttery
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Holloway , University of London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
Do Emotional Processing Difficulties mediate the relationship between Suffering and Perceived Meaning in Individuals with Rheumatoid Arthritis?
Rheumatoid Arthritis causes pain and disability. However, research shows differences in how people cope. This can be explained by examining an individual’s suffering rather than the disease activity. Suffering can be understood as a threat to an individual’s sense of of who they are. For example, a painter whose experience of rheumatoid arthritis is the progressive, painful, loss of function in their hands may suffer more than someone who's sense of themselves is not so reliant on dexterous fingers. By understanding suffering in this way, as a personally determined threat, one can consider developing psychological treatments to decrease suffering.
Research has identified that finding a meaning or benefit within the illness experience reduces suffering. This is because the meaning-making process allows an individual to use a psychological process called reappraisal to reduce the discrepancy between an individual’s sense of themselves before and after their illness. This process is influenced by how we understand, experience and express our emotions. Previous research has found that some individuals with Rheumatoid Arthritis may have more difficulty with emotional processing than the general population.
This study aims to explore whether these emotional processing difficulties could prevent an individual from being able to find meaning/benefit within their illness experience thus increasing their suffering. 97 adults with a diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis will be asked to complete 7 questionnaires during a routine Rheumatology appointment at University College London Hospital. These questionnaires will investigate disease activity, mood, suffering, emotional processing difficulties and perceived meaning/benefits. Completing these questionnaires is expected to take less than 20 minutes.
REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/SC/0380
Date of REC Opinion
17 Aug 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion