Culture, Gender, Self-Efficacy, and Life Satisfaction: A Comparison Between Americans and Chinese People with Spinal Cord Injuries

Journal of Rehabilitation,  July-Sept, 2000  by Nan Zhang Hampton,  Amy Marshall

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Instruments

The Life Situation Survey (LSS; Chubon, 1995) was used to assess life satisfaction. The LSS contains 20 items (Chubon, 1995; Clayton & Chubon, 1994). Participants are asked to indicate their agreement on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from "Agree Very Strongly" to "Disagree Very Strongly.' High scores reflect a higher level of life satisfaction. The LSS has been applied to people with SCI in both the U.S. and China (Clayton & Chubon, 1994; Hampton, 2000). In this study, the Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of the LSS was .85.

The Individualism-Collectivism scale (Trandis et al., 1986) was used to measure the values of individualism-collectivism. The scale contains 21 items answered on a six-point scale (Extremely Agree to Extremely Disagree). A factor analysis indicated that the scale contained four factors: (a) self-reliance, (b) interdependence, (c) family integrity, and (d) separation from ingroups. Originally, family integrity and interdependence were designed to be the indicators of collectivism; self-reliance and separation from ingroups were indicators of individualism. However, previous studies indicated that (a) collectivism was best described by family integrity but not by interdependence, and (b) individualism was well-described by separation from ingroups but not by self-reliance (Triandis et al., 1993; Triandis, McCusker, & Hui, 1990).

The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) was used to measure an individual's fundamental beliefs about his or her ability to cope with life's exigencies (Sherer, Maddux, Mercandante, PrenticeDunn, Jacobs, & Rogers, 1982). It consists of 17 items. Higher scores correspond with higher self-efficacy expectations. The Cronbach reliability of the GSES in this study was .79.

The Self-Rated Health Status scale (SRHS; Lawton, Moss, Fucomer, & Kleban, 1982) was used to measure perceived health. According to Lawton et al. (1982), the Cronbach alpha internal consistency of the scale was .76. The concurrent validity of the scale was supported by a moderate correlation (r = .63) between the scale and clinicians' rating of health status. The Cronbach reliability of the SRHS in this study was .75.

A demographic: information sheet containing the participants' age, age at the onset of disability, sex, educational level, marital and employment statuses, income, and injury level was developed. All instruments were translated into Chinese using a back translation method (English-Chinese-English) by a bilingual counseling psychology graduate student and a bilingual counseling psychologist. The Chinese versions of the instruments had been tested in a study of 40 people with SCI in China and the results indicated that the instruments were reliable (Hampton, 1998).

Procedures

The information regarding the study was published in the Newsletters of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association (NSCIA) in the U. S. Thirty local Chapters of the NSCIA across the U. S. were contacted by the phone. Fifteen Chapters agreed to participate in the study. Three hundred and eighty questionnaires in self-stamped envelopes were mailed to the coordinators of the local Chapters. The coordinators then distributed the questionnaires to members who met the recruitment criteria for participants. One hundred and thirty-three questionnaires were returned. The return rate was 35%. Meanwhile, the president and the chief psychologist of a rehabilitation center for people with spinal cord injuries in Beijing, China were contacted. Because this center was the only rehabilitation facility that specialized in spinal cord injuries in China, its patients came from different geographic areas across China. Two hundred questionnaires were sent to outpatients of the center. One hundred and thirty questionnaires were returned with a return rate of 65%. All participants received $5.00 or 40 Chinese yuan.