Health Condition, Impairment, Activity Limitations: Relationships With Emotions and Control Cognitions in People With Disabling Conditions

Objectives: To gain a better understanding of the influence of the health condition on emotions and control cognitions by using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework. The relations between health condition, impairment, activity limitations, and emotions or control cognitions were investigated in people with 1 of 2 different disabling conditions, chronic idiopathic axonal polyneuropathy (CIAP) or stroke. Method: Two existing databases were used: cross-sectional data from 56 participants with CIAP; longitudinal data of 100 participants with stroke. Participants were assessed on measures of the health condition, impairment, activity limitations, emotions, and control cognitions.
Results: In participants with CIAP, impairment explained variance in concurrent control cognitions (9%–25%), activity limitation in concurrent depression (8%), and control cognitions (26%–36%). In stepwise regression activity, limitation was more powerful in explaining variance in emotions and control cognitions than impairment. In people with stroke, only activity limitations explained variance in emotions (4%–9%) and control cognitions (4%–7%).
Conclusions: These results suggest that targeting activity limitations in rehabilitation efforts is likely to relate to control cognitions, which in themselves have been shown to benefit recovery of physical consequences in chronic
illness.