Learned self-help response to chronic illness experience: a test of three alternative learning theories.

The purpose of this study was to generate a self-help model depicting the essential dynamics of learned response to chronic illness experience. The method used to generate a self-help model was based on theoretical triangulation, as discussed by Houts, Cook, and Shadish (1986), Mitchell (1986), and Reichardt and Cook (1979). Theoretical triangulation, incorporating multiple perspectives and hypotheses in the same study, is a form of critical multiplism leading to testing of multiple rival hypotheses rather than single ones (Popper, 1972; Stinchcombe, 1968) and to construction of complex multivariate causal models instead of simple univariate ones (Blalock, 1961). Strong relationships were found between enabling skill, self-help, and life quality.