PERSONAL RESILIENCE, COGNITIVE APPRAISALS, AND COPING - AN INTEGRATIVE MODEL OF ADJUSTMENT TO ABORTION

We hypothesized that the effects of personality (self-esteem, control, and optimism) on postabortion adaptation (distress, well-being, and d ecision satisfaction) would be fully mediated by preabortion cognitive appraisals (stress appraisals and self-efficacy appraisals) and posta bortion coping. We further proposed that the effects of preabortion ap praisals on adaptation would be fully mediated by postabortion coping. Results of a longitudinal study of 527 women who had first-trimester abortions supported our hypotheses. Women with more resilient personal ities appraised their abortion as less stressful and had higher self-e fficacy for coping with the abortion. More positive appraisals predict ed greater acceptance/reframing coping and lesser avoidance/denial, ve nting, support seeking, and religious coping. Acceptance-reframing pre dicted better adjustment on all measures, whereas avoidance-denial and venting related to poorer adjustment on all measures. Greater support seeking was associated with reduced distress, and greater religious c oping was associated with less decision satisfaction.