ADAPTIVE COPING SKILLS FOR OLDER AFRICAN-AMERICANS WITH ARTHRITIS

Older African Americans have high rates of disability from arthritis. The Arthritis Self-Help (ASH) course teaches coping skills for arthrit is, but has not been evaluated as an intervention in African Americans . Pain is the most common reason that people with arthritis seek medic al intervention, but evaluation of the ASH program must use variables in addition to pain to test the effectiveness of the program. The stre ss-and-coping model suggests that activity and physical limitation, lo cus of control, life satisfaction, and self-efficacy for exercise and cognitive symptom management are key variables for assessing the effec tiveness of the ASH program. Twenty-six older African Americans, 53-84 years of age, completed the ASH program, and the Wilcoxin Matched-Pai r Ranked-Sign Test showed improvement after the ASH course for all var iables except the self-efficacy measures. Further study should evaluat e the role of self-efficacy for coping skills in these older persons.