Dispositional self-efficacy as a personal resource factor in coping after surgery

Abstract

Perceived general self-efficacy may serve as a dispositional coping resource factor in times of stress. Over a time period of 11 months, self-efficacy was studied as a predictor of four coping strategies: planning, humour, acceptance, and accommodation. Participants were 130 men and women who had undergone tumour surgery. They provided data at 1, 6 and 12 months after surgery. In the context of this stress episode, coping turned out to vary in terms of general self-efficacy levels and in terms of time. Planning, humour, acceptance, and accommodation were substantially associated with general self-efficacy, and time-lagged correlations suggested an antecedent role of general self-efficacy as a personal resource factor. Cross-lagged panel correlations with latent variables confirmed the hypothesised sequence of the two sets of variables.

Introduction

Coping resources play an important role in the adjustment to illness. Self-efficacy represents a personal resource factor that may facilitate coping (Knoll, Rieckmann, & Schwarzer, 2005). However, resources and processes are seen as confounded, and successful coping processes may build up a self-efficacy resource while maladaptive coping may impair self-efficacy. The question is whether the hypothesised antecedent status of resources can be demonstrated within a non-experimental, longitudinal research design. Because of the multiple and diverse threats that cancer patients may be dealing with at any moment, and the difficulty in specifying when certain stressors start or cease to affect the patient (e.g., recurrence, social role changes), it is hypothesised that temporal variations in the course of coping with cancer will be found. To examine this hypothesis, different types of coping are selected to assess problem-focused/assimilative coping strategies (e.g., planning) and emotion-focused/accommodative coping strategies (e.g., humour, accommodation, and acceptance). In the context of uncontrollable stressors such as cancer, planning refers to thinking about gathering information regarding disease and available treatments, defining new goals (e.g., following regular cancer screenings) and modifying old ones (Carver et al., 1993). Coping modes such as acceptance, accommodation, and humour are directed at threat minimisation that enable individuals to manage their distress. Acceptance means compliance with the reality of a stressful situation, learning to live with it, accepting its implications, and its irreversible course (Carver et al., 1993). Although this definition implies that accommodation and acceptance refer to the same coping strategy, it is arguable that acceptance is an adaptive coping response, in that someone who accepts the reality of a stressor would come to terms with the situation. On the other hand, accommodation can be regarded as somewhat distinct from acceptance as it involves cognitive or behavioural efforts to adjust the self to stress e.g., “I learned to live with my illness”. The use of humour, acceptance, and accommodation was found to be associated with lower distress among cancer patients (Carver et al., 1993).