Schultz and Decker19 replicated Bulman and
Wortman's18 study and used inventories rather than
sta report to assess emotional adjustment. The
researchers attempted to address the question of
whether primary appraisal of self-blame was still an
eective coping strategy after acute rehabilitation. This
study involved 100 individuals who had been injured,
on average 20 years earlier. Three measures of
emotional adjustment were used: The Index of
Psychological Well Being,20 The Life Satisfaction
Index21 and the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies
Depression Scale (CES-D).22 Correlations between
self-blame primary appraisals and scores of emotional
adjustment were modest but signi®cant. This ®nding
indicated, a tendency for those who blamed themselves
for their injury, to be less depressed than those who
blamed external in¯uences. Although this study had
included a more eective means of assessing emotional
outcome it was still severely constrained by its
simplicity, with appraisal of blame being the only
variable examined. Furthermore, Shultz and Decker19
attempted to overcome problems concerning the lack
of control groups by using standardised inventories
with norm data. This attempt to include controls was