Premium
Dispositional Optimism/Pessimism and Coping Strategies: Predictors of Psychosocial Adjustment of Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis Patients 1
Author(s) -
Long Bonita C.,
Sangster Joanna I.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1993.tb01022.x
Subject(s) - optimism , pessimism , lisrel , psychosocial , psychology , coping (psychology) , wishful thinking , rheumatoid arthritis , clinical psychology , osteoarthritis , medicine , psychiatry , structural equation modeling , social psychology , philosophy , statistics , alternative medicine , mathematics , epistemology , pathology
Because rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has a more unpredictable course than osteoarthritis (OA), we hypothesized that generalized expectancies (optimistic/ pessimistic) influence the psychosocial adjustment of RA patients, whereas disease severity influences the adjustment of OA patients. Path analysis (LISREL VI) revealed that pessimistic RA patients ( N = 107) and the more physically disabled OA patients ( N = 108) reported poorer adjustment. The hypothesized mediating role of coping was supported for the RA but not the OA sample; that is, pessimism was associated with poor adjustment through greater use of wishful thinking coping. Unexpectedly, problem‐solving coping was not found to mediate the optimism adjustment relationship.