rehabilitate patients and decrease feelings of depression and powerlessness.
In an effort to determine the possible outcomes of such a program, the authors developed and tested an exercise prescription and unsupervised home exercise program on 37 subjects with rheumatoid arthritis and 34 subjects with systemic lupus erythematosus. Subjects in the study were randomly assigned to control or stationary bicycling at home, using loaned bicycles. It was found that exercise subjects (with bicycles) did better than controls, but not significantly, on all outcome measures (exercise tolerance test, fatigue, depression and helplessness) at three months.
The bicycles were reclaimed and all subjects in both groups were given instructions for the home exercise part of the program. However, at three-month follow-up, the findings were disappointing. The authors concluded that unsupervised home exercise programs are not an effective means of rehabilitating either rheumatoid arthritis of lupus patients but that supervised exercise programs would probably be very valuable in helping with physical rehabilitation as well as decreasing feelings of depression and helplessness.
Another helpful rehabilitation effort in assisting patients to deal with psychological and psychosocial issues associated with lupus has been to provide patients with training in how to develop and/or improve their coping strategies. This point was made by McCracken, Semenchuk and Goetsch (1995) based on their investigation of coping in relation to the psychological adjustment and functional status in 46 adults with systemic lupus erythematosus.
Study participants completed questionnaires that measured coping with lupus, depression, and functional impairment. A subgroup (n = 22) completed the same questionnaires an average of 7.7 months later.
Correlational and regression analyses revealed that passive coping strategies (e.g., avoidance, wishful thinking, blaming s...