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.