Research Results

As some of you know, I am a graduate student in NJ working on my master's degree in counseling psychology. This semester I have taken on some very informative and interesting research. I am taking this opportunity and this forum to report on my research findings.

The hypotheses for my study was that individuals with physical disabilites who are involved in some kind of mental health services would have a more positive quality of life perception than individuals with physical disabilities who were not using such services. The rationale for this study was that mental health services do aid people in achieving their goals and attaining mental well being. Also, I had hoped to educate myself and my peers to the needs of individuals with physical disabilities.

Participants were recruited from the Internet and were asked to fill out a Quality of Life Inventory as well as a mental health service questionnaire that the author designed. The individuals were mailed a self addressed stamped envelope in order to make returning the surveys that much easier. The mean age of the participants was 41.75 years.

I won't bore you with the statistics that were generated, but I would like to share the results. Individuals who utilized services were put into "group 1" and individuals who did not use services were put into "group 2". Interestingly enough there were no significant differences found between the quality of life perceptions of individuals in both of these groups. Thus, not supporting my hypotheses. However, at the end of the quality of life inventory the participants are able to write in areas of concern. This is where is gets interesting. Based on the statistics, people were generally satisfied with the areas measured. However, the fill in portion deemed other results. Both groups noted problems with the government, family, community, and neighborhood that effected their quality of life. It seems as if participants used the fill in section to note external factors that were effecting them yet rated their quality of life on internal factors.

There are several conclusions that can be made. The onset on disability may have been a factor in this study. I am not sure how long the participants had been disabled. Time is a factor in how a person learns coping skills and adjustment skills. It is also possible that technology has had a major role in life quality. Individuals may have reported that they did not use mental health service but the support found on the Internet provided some kind of support. Of course, a major factor is that my sample size was small and a larger sample size may had deemed different results.

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