Quality of Life of the Disabled: From Environmental to Personality Oriented Approach

The paper analyses the theoretical approaches to the investigation of the quality of life in persons with disabilities. Most of these investigations are localised within the clinical context and are based on the environmental approach which focuses upon one's living conditions and the related deficiencies. However, the experience of the Western countries has proved that improving environmental conditions, that is, social, financial and medical assistance to the disabled, does not automatically improve the subjective aspect of the quality of life of people with disabilities. The subjective aspect of the quality of life is one's subjective well-being that represents the integral self-evaluation of 'personality effectiveness' in various developmental conditions. The analysis of both foreign and Russian research and practical experience presented in this paper shows that the leading role in promoting a higher quality of life of persons with disabilities is attributed to one's inner psychological resources, as well as one's attitude towards his/her own disability.

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