9407124 Bates This project supports three cultural anthropologists studying how Puerto Rican sufferers from chronic, incurable arthritis cope with their pain and disability. The researchers will identify a group of about 65 sufferers from arthritis and in a series of intensive interviews will study how they cope with and manage their diseases. This information will be compared with the studies of how Anglo populations cope with chronic disease. Methods include intensive life history interviews, examination of patient records, and the administration of standardized questionnaires dealing with pain management, coping strategies, and psychological adjustment to chronic illness (the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scale, McGill Pain Questionnaire, Satisfaction With Life Scale, Ethnicity and Pain Questionnaire, and Locus of Control style. This project is important because it broadens the model of adaptation to chronic illness to include ethnic variables. It will add to our understanding of the human ability to adapt to incurable chronic disease by determining what coping strategies, resources, constraints and other factors in the subjects varied environments affect their overall level of adjustment. The knowledge from this project will be useful to all health care personnel seeking to develop culturally relevant health care delivery procedures. The project also involves the research of handicapped and minority scientists, and therefore contributes to the diversity of the active researcher population.
