Accepting the mental illness label, perceived control over the illness, and quality of life

Rehabilitation literature generally encourages persons with chronic disabil ities to accept their medical diagnosis as a step toward maintaining and po ssibly improving the quality of their lives. To investigate the manner in w hich the acceptance of a psychiatric label impacts upon aspects of quality of life for persons with psychiatric disabilities this study developed a co mprehensive measure of the acceptance of a psychiatric label, and examined ifs relation to a multidimensional self-report measure of quality of life. IC;be possible mediating, moderating and direct effects of the rehabilitant s' perceived control over their illness on their quality of life was also e xamined. Psychiatric self-labeling was found to be negatively related and p erceived control over the illness was found to be positively related to qua lity of life in a number of important life areas.