Psychosocial Adaptation to Visual Impairment

Abstract

Acquired visual impairment evoked several psychological reactions. A person’s adapta- tion to these reactions and their associated characteristics such as degree of vision loss, membership of a specific demographic, and impact on personality had been investi - gated. Socio-environmental variables also had an impact on psychological adjustment, and adaptation to vision loss had been explained using psychoanalytic models and stage models. Previous research had thus developed adjustment models incorporating the variables of anxiety, depression, self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, acceptance of disability, attitudes toward blindness, and attributional style, among other influences. However, effective types of treatment based on these variables had not been empirically demonstrated. While grief work had been commonly used in intervention strategies, and there was now more information available about group counseling in this field, their evaluation had been insufficient. As an alternative, we implemented a structured group counseling program to decrease psychological distress in adults with visual impairment. The results indicated that participants who engaged in individual therapy in addition to group counseling showed decreased depression, fatigue, and confusion, and a sig - nificantly improved acceptance of their disability. The group counseling combined with individual cognitive therapy could be the effective tool to improve social influences and internal self of the person with visual impairment. recreation, and computer training. The programs were held 5 days per week, and the course ran for 6 months. The results indicated that participants in skills training alone ( n = 32) improved significantly in acceptance and attribution style, while also showing a trend of improvement in tension anxiety and self-esteem. However, participants with high levels of psychological distress (who indicated a T -score of Profile of Mood States Test over 60, n = 10) did not show any such improvements. Nevertheless, highly distressed participants that participated in group counseling ( n = 18) showed significant improvement in their attitudes toward visual impairment and reported decreased anxiety. Moreover, par ticipants that chose to engage in individual therapy in addition to group counseling ( n = 9) also showed a decrease in depressive mood, fatigue, and confusion, as well as significantly increased acceptance of their visual disability.