Recovery from a traumatic injury requires ongoing psychological adjustment. Traumatic injuries lead to cognitive and behavioural changes, limiting an individual’s ability to engage in social relationships, employment, and other activities. Difficulty in psychological adjustment can lead to anger management issues, depression, or poor self-esteem. However, people with disabilities adjust over time, and coping skills play an important role in mediating the effects of traumatic injuries on psychological adjustment.
Coping is a person’s behavioural and cognitive efforts in dealing with taxing situations that endanger well-being. Coping strategies, emotion-focused and problem-focused, are employed once an event is appraised as stressful. Emotion-focused coping attempts to regulate the negative emotions associated with the perceived stressor. These are used when the situation is perceived as unchangeable. On the other hand, problem-focused coping deals directly with the stressor. It obtains information or skills to modify, manage, or alter stressful events. It is activated when situations are seen as controllable. Problem-focused is considered as adaptive and related to positive adjustment than emotion-focused coping.
Adaptive coping strategies such as acceptance of disability, positive reappraisal, humour, and stress management were associated with lower depression and anxiety, higher self-esteem, and positive affect. In contrast, maladaptive coping leads to higher depression and anxiety and poorer emotional adjustment. Maladaptive coping includes behaviour disengagement, wishful thinking, threat minimisation, self-blame, denial, distractions, and avoidance.
Some factors can influence which coping strategy to use, affecting psychological adjustment.
Appraisal
- Appraisals include scanning the environment for potential harm, loss, threat, or a challenge. The inference about a situation is determined by the person’s psychological characteristics, past experiences with stressful situations, and expectations for the future. After appraising a situation, available coping resources are utilized to lessen the impact of the stressful situation.
- Individuals who appraise and believe that they can solve the problem in the environment are more likely to experience higher psychological adjustment.
Locus of control
- Internal locus of control, or the self-perception that the individual has a degree of control over a specific outcome or situation, were associated with problem-focused coping, leading to a better emotional adjustment.
- External locus of control leads to a decrease in mental health and well-being.
Hope
- Hope is the belief and perception that goals can be met. It nurtures perseverance despite the challenges and threats. It consists of a positive perception of a person’s ability to initiate and maintain actions to reach a goal and a positive belief in generating pathways to the desired goals. These are thought to provide a motivational state, creating more action-oriented solutions.
The psychological adaptiveness of coping strategies may change over time. Individuals who experienced traumatic injury may display a reduction in the use of problem-focused coping and an increase in emotion-focused coping. Repeated attempts to actively solve problems associated with the effects of traumatic injuries may lead to negative feelings such as helplessness and frustration. It is vital to identify and develop early adaptive coping strategies to provide a strong foundation of skills in managing uncertainty across any situation and reducing psychological problems.
Certain strategies are not always helpful or problematic across all situations but may have different adaptive or maladaptive effects at different times and in different situations. Instead, the presence of flexibility towards various coping strategies would be helpful for optimal psychological adjustment.
Content provided by our partners in mental wellness:
Comments are closed.