Social support and functional outcome in severe mental illness: The mediating role of proactive coping

Individuals with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) are faced with wide-spread social and occupational impairment, yet some are able to achieve a meaningful degree of functional improvement. A structural model based on Proactive Coping Theory was developed and tested in a longitudinal context to better understand: (1) the impact of proactive processes on functioning for people with SMI, and (2) the stability of the theoretical framework over time for this population. A latent path analysis examining social support, positive reappraisal, intrinsic motivation, and role functioning was tested with 148 severely mentally ill individuals receiving psychosocial rehabilitation treatment at baseline. An observed path analysis of the model was examined at six months post-baseline with 102 people. The baseline model displayed an excellent fit to the data and accounted for 54% of the variance in role functioning. Results at time 2 also suggest the empirical promise and potential longitudinal viability of the model. In line with Proactive Coping Theory and a social resources model of coping, social support may facilitate proactive coping processes to enhance role functioning, and these processes may be stable over time for people with SMI.