Pain Beliefs, Coping and Quality of Life among Burns’ Patients at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana_2016

Abstract

The study examined pain beliefs, coping and quality of life among burns’ patients at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana. A sample of 70 burns patients were selected from the Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Burns Centre, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. The cross-sectional survey method was employed. The participants were administered the Pain Beliefs and Perception Inventory, the Brief COPE, the Africentrism Scale and the WHOQoL-BREF. The result revealed that “pain beliefs” was a significant negative predictor of quality of life. Among the domains of pain beliefs, self-blame was the most prominent predictor of patients’ quality of life across all domains. Adaptive coping and Africentric cultural values correlated significantly positively to psychological quality of life. The result further showed significant but negative relationships between maladaptive coping and all domains of quality of life except psychological quality of life which showed a negative but not significant relationship. However, the claim that mystery pain beliefs and self-blame pain beliefs will significantly predict quality of life better than constancy and time permanence pain beliefs was not supported. The results indicated no mediating role of coping on the relationship between pain beliefs and quality of life. It is concluded that dysfunctional pain beliefs and maladaptive coping strategies could have negative impact on burns patients’ quality of life. The recommendation is that in clinical practice, a holistic form of treatment and counseling system should be incorporated in the management of burns injuries, paying particular attention to the kind of pain beliefs and coping strategies adopted by burns’ patients.