Understanding Coping with Distress due to Physical Disability

This article presents findings of two studies that investigated coping with physical disability within the multivariate transactional model of stress. In the first study, 30 persons with locomotor disability were interviewed to explore the nature of stressors and coping strategies. In the second study, five scales were administered on a sample of 120 persons with locomotor disability to investigate the role of personal and situational variables in determining the extent of perceived distress and its relationship with coping. The manner in which anÄsakti and positive life orientation moderated the relationship between perceived distress and coping was also investigated. The findings revealed that the major stressors which led to distress were ego-related stressors, inability to fulfil traditional gender roles, problems in interpersonal relationships with family and others, physical barriers and deformed body image. Education was found to be the strongest predictor of perceived distress and problem-focused coping was significantly related to lower levels of distress. Moderation analyses showed that with stronger belief in the philosophy of anÄsakti and higher positive life orientation, lower levels of distress were strongly related to problem focused coping. The impli-cations of these findings for psycho-social rehabilitation of persons with physical disability are discussed.