Psychosocial stress in Hansen's disease: a comparison with other chronic illness patients.

The present study investigated stress, as measured by a standardized life events scale, in Hansen's disease (HD) patients and as compared to renal patients and non-illness controls. Statistical analyses indicated that experimental groups were well matched on variables of age, sex, and marital status. Regarding analyses of the life events scale, significant differences were found across groups for negative change scores and total change scores. Post-hoc analyses revealed that the outpatient HD group and the renal group were significantly different from the non-illness controls. The results are viewed as support for the hypothesis that HD patients are similar to other chronic illness groups in terms of psychosocial characteristics.