Psychosocial Adaptation to Chronic Illness and Disability

This article reviews the fundamental components inherent in the process of psychosocial adaptation to chronic illness and disability (CID). It is proposed that investigation of the process of adaptation to CID should consider three distinct classes of interacting variables. First, antecedents or triggering events (causes and contextual variables) present during origination of condition are listed. Second, the dynamic process of adaptation itself (experienced reactions following the onset of CID), as anchored within the existing context of both internally and externally associated groups of variables, is discussed. Third, psychosocial outcome categories that reflect differing views of adaptation to CID are overviewed. Such outcomes correspond to specific or global indicators of quality of life and may be categorized according to their functional domains, content areas, technologies or methods of assessment, and sources of measurement data. This article concludes with discussion of the three-class model's potential implications to rehabilitation practitioners and researchers.