*3.7. Future Perception*

Almost half of the patients (53%) manifested negative anticipations, forecasting more preventive precautions, difficulties, limitations, and discomfort than those that had already suffered because of the disease, thus passing to resignation and unavoidable acceptance. Such a negative future perception was present in 50% of the control group, forecasting a sad, stressing, and financially hard future, with consequences on work and relationships. Nevertheless, 34% of patients had a positive vision of the future, including the opportunity to come back to normal life, due to a profound faith in scientific research. Fifty percent of controls prefigured the return to normal daily life, although with unavoidable changes in physical relationship and environment. Among the patients' group, 13% had a passive, static attitude without changes in future perspectives. No significant differences were observed between groups (*X*2(1, *N* = 25) = 1.3, *p* = 0.5118).
