Mediating Role of Illness Perception and Coping Strategies among individuals with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Introduction: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic disease of gastrointestinal system, which effects various aspects of the individuals' life. A vast majority of individuals with IBD suffered from depression symptoms compared to general population. This endeavor was designed to examine goodness of fit of an explaining structural model of depression on the basis of type D personality and mediating role of illness perception and coping strategies. Method: In a correlational study 268 IBD Patients were selected by Purposive Sampling method from Clinic of the Liver and Digestive Research Center of Qom province and they completed the BDI-PC depression scale, Coping Strategies Questionnaire, Illness perception Questionnaire, and type D Personality scale. Data were analyzed by Lisrel software using the structural equation modeling. Results: As regard of predictive role of negative affectivity (18.49%), illness perception (mediated by emotion-focused coping 3.8% and by problem-focused one 2.1%), and emotion (7.84%) and problem solving focused (10.24%) coping strategies on depression significantly, an acceptable goodness of fit was indicated for a structural model containing NA (negative affectivity) as exogenous variable, emotion and problem solving focused copings as mediating variable and depression as a endogenous variable. Conclusion: These findings support mediating role of illness perception and coping strategies between type D personality and depression in IBD Patients