Coping strategy mediates the relationship between body image evaluation and mental health: A study with Chinese college students with disabilities

Background: For students with disabilities, evidence exists of significant links between body image evaluation and mental health status, and between coping strategies and mental health status, yet few investigations have tested body image evaluation, coping strategies and mental health status in one study to reveal their complicated relationships. Objective: The present study investigated the mediation role of coping strategy between body image evaluation and mental health and its variations among Chinese university students with three types of disabilities, physical disability, visual disability and hearing disability. Method: Two hundred and fifty-five Chinese college students (166 males and 89 females) with disabilities completed a battery of self-report questionnaires, including Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ), Coping Style Questionnaire (CQS) and Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90). Mediation analyses were conducted in AMOS. Results: In students with physical disabilities, positive coping strategies played a role in mediating the relation between body image evaluation and mental health (β = −0.190, p < 0.05). In students with hearing disabilities, negative coping strategies played the mediation role (β = −0.089, p < 0.05). No significant mediation effect was found in students with visual disabilities. Meanwhile, the mental health status of all of the three groups were significantly lower than the Chinese norm (M = 129.96; SD = 38.76) (all ps < 0.01). Conclusions: In Chinese college students with disabilities, in bridging the link between their body image evaluation and mental health status, coping strategies played a central role and its specific role varied depending upon the type of disability. Practical implications are discussed.