Prediction of post traumatic growth based on social support, coping styles and optimism in patients with Brain Tumor

Introduction: Brain tumorr is a deadly disease but patients can have positive growth psychologically. It is important to find factors that lead psychological growth of patients. Therefore, this study was aimed to predict the post traumatic growth based on social support, coping styles and optimism in patients with brain tumor. Methods: In this correlational and descriptive study, the statistical population included all patients with brain tumor who referred to the hospitals of Bandar Abbas in 2015, 200 patients were selected through convenience sampling method. Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), Social Support Inventory (SSA), Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WOCQ) and Life Orientation Test (LOT) were used to gather data. For data analysis, Pearson correlation and stepwise multivariate regression analyses were used to determine the relationship between variables and examine the role of predictor variables and their contribution in predicting the criterion variable. Data were analyzed using SPSS 22. Results: Pearson correlation results showed that there was a significant correlation between social support, problem-based and emotion-focused coping strategies with post-traumatic growth (P<0.05). But there wasn't a significant relationship between optimism and post-traumatic growth. The results of stepwise regression analysis also showed that social support and problem-based coping strategies explained 30.3% of posttraumatic growth variance together, but emotion-focused coping strategies and optimism cannot predict posttraumatic growth. Conclusion: According to the findings it can be suggested that training and intervention on improving patients' social support and coping strategies are effective way on increasing posttraumatic growth and improving the psychological state.