U-M Research Shows Chronically Ill Patients Might Be Happier if They Give Up Hope

U-M Research Shows Chronically Ill Patients Might Be Happier if They Give Up
Hope

Study shows that colostomy patients who believed their condition was
irreversible reported better quality of life than those with faith that they
would be cured

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Holding on to hope may not
make patients happier as they deal with chronic illness or diseases, according
to a new study by University of Michigan Health System researchers.

"Hope is an important part of happiness," said Peter A. Ubel, M.D., director
of the U-M Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine and one of
the authors of the happily hopeless study, "but there's a dark side of hope.
Sometimes, if hope makes people put off getting on with their life, it can get
in the way of happiness."

The results showed that people do not adapt well to situations if they are
believed to be short-term. Ubel and his co-authors -- both from U-M and
Carnegie Mellon University -- studied patients who had new colostomies: their
colons were removed and they had to have bowel movements in a pouch that lies
outside their body.

At the time they received their colostomy, some patients were told that the
colostomy was reversible -- that they would undergo a second operation to
reconnect their bowels after several months. Others were told that the
colostomy was permanent and that they would never have normal bowel function
again. The second group -- the one without hope -- reported being happier over
the next six months than those with reversible colostomies.

"We think they were happier because they got on with their lives. They
realized the cards they were dealt, and recognized that they had no choice but
to play with those cards," says Ubel, who is also a professor in the
Department of Internal Medicine.

"The other group was waiting for their colostomy to be reversed," he added.
"They contrasted their current life with the life they hoped to lead, and
didn't make the best of their current situation."

The research was published in this month's edition of Health Psychology.

Ubel was joined in the research by Dylan M. Smith, Ph.D., a research
specialist at the Ann Arbor VA Health Services Research and Development Center
and a U-M psychologist; Aleksandra Jankovic, of U-M's Center for Behavioral
and Decision Sciences in Medicine and George Loewenstein, professor in the
Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.

Loewenstein said these results also may explain why people who lose a spouse
to death often recover better emotionally over time than those who get
divorced.

"If your husband or wife dies, you have closure. There aren't any lingering
possibilities for reconciliation," Loewenstein said.

Ubel said health professionals find it easier to deliver optimistic news to
patients even when they believe the prognosis is unfavorable, justifying it by
assuming that holding on to hope was better for the patient.

Said Loewenstein: "It may be easier for a doctor to deliver a hopeful message
to a patient, even when there isn't much objective reason for hope, but it may
not be best for the patient."

"Hopeful messages may not be in the best interests of the patient and may
interfere with the patient's emotional adaptation," Ubel says. "I don't think
we should take hope away. But I think we have to be careful about building up
people's hope so much that they put off living their lives."

The research was funded by the National Institute on Child Health and Human
Development. Smith was supported by a career development award from the
Department of Veterans Affairs.

SOURCE University of Michigan Health System

Mary F. Masson, mfmasson@umich.edu or Margarita Bauza, mbauza@umich.edu,
+1-734-764-2220, both of the University of Michigan Health System