Zm. Shnek et al., HELPLESSNESS, SELF-EFFICACY, COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS, AND DEPRESSION INMULTIPLE-SCLEROSIS AND SPINAL-CORD INJURY, Annals of behavioral medicine, 19(3), 1997, pp. 287-294
The aim of this study was to determine if learned helplessness, self-e
fficacy and cognitive distortions would predict depression in a sample
of 80 individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) and 80 individuals wit
h a spinal cord injury (SCI). As MS and SCI usually present with dispa
rate disease courses and etiologies, a secondary objective was to dete
rmine if individuals with MS would exhibit greater levels of helplessn
ess, cognitive distortions, and depression and lower levels of self-ef
ficacy than those with SCI. Results indicated that helplessness and se
lf-efficacy significantly predicted depression for both the MS and SCI
groups after controlling for confounding variables. Cognitive distort
ions had no independent effect, indicating that cognitive distortions
may have caused feelings of helplessness and low self-efficacy and in
this way, had indirect effects on depression. The MS group exhibited s
ignificant try greater levels of depression and helplessness and signi
ficantly lower levels of self-efficacy than the SCI group. It was hypo
thesized that it may have been the combination of an unpredictable cou
rse of disease activity and the possibility of being affected by MS in
many different was that produced greater feelings of depression, help
lessness, and low self-efficacy in the MS group.