Comparisons Between Illness and Injury Outcomes: Potential Suppression Effects by Emotional Representations
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Comparisons Between Illness and Injury Outcomes: Potential Suppression Effects by Emotional Representations Irit Heruti 1 & Sigal Levy 2 & Daniel Deutscher 3 & Moshe Gutvirtz 3 & Tamar Berkovitz 3 & Shoshana Shiloh 4 Accepted: 14 September 2020 # International Society of Behavioral Medicine 2020
Abstract Background Based on recent findings that people perceive illness and injury as separate categories, we compared ill and injured participants with similar health conditions on illness perceptions and reported outcomes, e.g., functioning, distress, well-being. Method A cross-sectional study with 182 ill and 160 injured participants affected by ankle, knee, or neck conditions compared them on standard measures of illness perception and other reported outcomes (self-assessed health; physical, emotional, and social functioning; depression, anxiety, and somatization; satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and acceptance of disability). Results The groups did not differ on the measured outcomes, but injury elicited stronger emotional representations, and illness was perceived as more chronic. After controlling for the effects of emotional representations, the injured group presented better outcomes on all outcome measures, including self-assessed health, physical functioning, emotional functioning, social functioning, vitality, health beliefs, depression, somatization, total distress, and acceptance of disability. Conclusion Emotional representations may suppress the potential superior outcomes of injury compared with illness. The theoretical implications of these results for self-regulation theories are discussed, as well as clinical implications. Keywords Injury . Illness perceptions . Emotional representations . Self-reported outcomes Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-020-09931-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Shoshana Shiloh [email protected] Irit Heruti [email protected] Sigal Levy [email protected] Daniel Deutscher [email protected] Moshe Gutvirtz [email protected] Tamar Berkovitz [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Rabin Medical Center, Petach Tikva, Israel
2
The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Tel Aviv, Israel
3
Maccabi Healthcare Services, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
4
School of Psychological Sciences, Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences, Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel
Introduction Until recently, most of the health and medical psychology literature considered illness and injury equivalent conditions. For example, scenarios describing different illnesses or injuries were used interchangeably in experiments testing the effects of salient identities on symptom evaluation [1]. Occasionally, injury was conceptualized as a cause of illness, as in a study among women attending cervical screening, in which “accident or injury” loaded on a factor interpreted as behavioral causes, alongside smoking, alcohol, and having children [2]. Still, other
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