Fortologiese dimensies by bejaardes met alzheimer se siekte of rumatoide artritis

[摘要] English: Since the 1980s, positive Psychology has become more prominent incontrast to the negative focus that characterized the earlydevelopment of Psychology. Increasingly, the focus is not only on theorigin, nature and treatment of dysfunctional behaviour, namelypsychopathology, but also on situations in which the person can facehis or her circumstances. The reasons for health rather than thecauses of illness are also being investigated.Aaron Antonovsky (1979) did pioneer work by doing research onhealth, and introduced his construct salutogenesis to the world.Many studies relating to his work followed. The concept of Antonovskyhas been extended and adapted to investigate human strengths. Theterm psychofortology was introduced by Wissing and Van Eeden(1999) to specifically investigate the factors underlying thepsychological strengths within the individual.The purpose of this study is to determine how the theory ofpsychofortology is established, should a chronic and life threateningstressor be present. A comparative study was therefore done toinvestigate the role of the presence of psychofortological factors in theelderly who suffer from Alzheimer's disease, rheumatoid arthritis orneither of these diseases.A literature study was conducted on the nature of each of theconstructs in order to understand the interaction between the illness,psychofortological factors and the construct of quality of life of theaged. A qualitative analysis approach was used to determine the subjectivelife experience of each of the study participants. No significantdifferences between the three groups under investigation regardingthe experience of quality of life could be shown. The conclusion is thatin the aged who are subjected to different stressors, the presence offortological factors enable them to experience a positive quality of life.Due to the practical restrictions of the study (inter alia, the smallstudygroup) it is recommended that this research be repeated on alarger scale.

[发布机构] University of the Free State