Chronically ill patients' expectations of therapeutic education and their health locus of control

BACKGROUND Beliefs as cognitive components of personality indicate what we consider as true or false and help us to answer questions concerning others, the world surrounding us and situations that we encounter. Beliefs about the health locus of control and their relations with expectations pertaining to therapeutic education seem to be of vital importance in the case of occurrence of a chronic illness. The aim of this paper is to verify whether expectations concerning therapeutic education in chronically ill patients demonstrate a relation with beliefs about the health locus of control and whether they vary according to gender, age and health, and to present the results of research that applies the Polish OE-15 scale for the evaluation of therapeutic education expectations depending on the health condition. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE Two hundred and ninety-one persons were examined, including 180 patients and 111 healthy controls (the control group), 187 women and 104 men. The average age of subjects was 45.71 (SD = 13.51) years, ranging from 21 to 80 years. The OE-15 Therapeutic Education Expectations Scale and the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale in versions relevant for patients and healthy controls as well as demographics were used. RESULTS Age, gender and beliefs about the health locus of control are related to expectations of therapeutic education. CONCLUSIONS When providing therapeutic education for chronically ill patients, one should assess their expectations and pay attention to patients' beliefs about the health locus of control.