Thinking positively about chronic illness: An exploration of optimism, illness perceptions and well‐being in patients with <scp>P</scp> arkinson's disease

Abstract

What is already known on this subject? Positive illness perceptions and high optimism are associated with better well-being in a range of conditions, both chronic and acute. Preliminary studies suggest that in chronic degenerative diseases, marked positive optimism confers no additional benefit over medium levels of optimism for well-being and is associated with less use of adaptive coping. What does this study add? Optimism moderates the effects of specific negative illness perceptions on well-being in Parkinson's disease. No evidence was found that unrealistic positive illness perceptions are detrimental to well-being. Adaptive illness perceptions may be condition specific.