BRIEF REPORTS The Relationship of Perceived Self-Efficacy to Quality of Life in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

From a biomedical perspective, variations in the quality of life of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients may be attributed to changes in pulmonary function; thus, an increase in lung function should be correlated with an increased score on a health-related quality-of-life measure. However, inconsistent results regarding correlations between various measures of pulmonary function and quality of life have been reported in the literature. The authors evaluated a social cognitive model of quality of life among persons with COPD by analyzing relationships among biomedical measures, self-efficacy measures, and quality-of-life measures in a recursive path model. Path analysis results indicated that the association of pulmonary function and symptoms with quality of life was mediated by perceived self-efficacy for functional activities. Key words: self-efficacy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), quality of life, path analysis, social cognitive theory Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, exceeded only by heart attack, cancer, and stroke. It is estimated that more than 16 millio