Generalized Self-Efficacy, Coping, and Self-Esteem as Predictors of Psychological Adjustment Among Children With Disabilities or Chronic Illnesses

This study tested the hypothesis that more use of acceptance coping and less use of avoidance, emotional reaction, and wishful thinking coping would predict higher generalized self-efficacy (GSE) and self-esteem, and that higher GSE and self-esteem would, in turn, predict better psychological adjustment, operationalized as lower anxiety and higher life satisfaction. The alternative hypothesis that GSE and self-esteem would serve as psychological resources that predict coping, and that coping would, in turn, directly predict psychological adjustment, also was tested. Children (n = 42) enrolled at a camp for children with disabilities were administered instruments that assessed coping styles, GSE, self-esteem, anxiety, and life satisfaction. Hierarchical multiple regression and bootstrapping tested the mediational hypotheses. Emotion-oriented coping and self-esteem predicted life satisfaction; distance coping, self-efficacy, and self-esteem predicted anxiety; and self-esteem mediated the relation between self-efficacy and anxiety.