Montgomery H, Persson LO, Rydén A.
Department of Psychology, University of Stockholm, Sweden.
DOI: 10.2340/165019779628233240

How do disabled persons evaluate their life situation? To address this issue, importance and attainment ratings of 82 different life values as well as mood ratings were collected from 325 chronically ill and/or disabled persons and 504 non-disabled persons. Both groups largely agreed on what is important in life. The disabled persons, however, gave lower importance ratings on functions related to health and mobility. The attainment and mood ratings were in general slightly lower for the disabled persons. The attainment ratings for health and mobility were markedly lower. The concordance between rated importance and attainment across different life values was positive in both groups. This measure was also positively related to mood in both samples. It was suggested that disabled persons adjust to their life situation by de-emphasizing the importance of the physical functions affected by the disability and through habituation.