Psychological Recovery of Accident Victims With Temporary and Permanent Disability

The main objective of this study was to examine the role of causal beliefs in the psychological recovery of temporarily and permanently disabled accident victims. Patients ( N = 41) from a government hospital and private nursing homes in Allahabad city, India, were interviewed one week and three weeks after the accident. The doctor's report of their recovery was also obtained each time. The permanently disabled patients were found less motivated to search for the causes of the tragic event. When asked to make attribution, permanently disabled attributed the accident more to external factors than those who were temporarily disabled. Chance and God's will were the causes more frequently mentioned. Attributions to Karma and God's will were significantly correlated with psychological recovery. The sense of personal control was not found to be a good index of psychological recovery. Number of complaints made by the patients and their depressive symptoms, as observed by the doctors, negatively correlated with the psychological recovery.