Coping with Schizophrenia: Measuring Coping Styles, Patterns and Temporal Types

Abstract

How persons prefer to cope with stressful life events play an important role in one's ability to adapt to stressful life conditions such as schizophrenia. Cross-sectional studies have shown that schizophrenia patients utilize several different (task-, emotion- and avoidance-oriented) coping strategies, both favorable and unfavorable, to cope with their disorder. Coping resources then come to play an important role in quality of life and outcomes of these patients. However, little is known about the long-term relationship between these psychosocial variables and coping patterns in schizophrenia. This chapter summarizes findings from three studies [18, 25, 26], which assessed the coping strategies of participants with schizophrenia and participants who did not suffer from any significant mental health condition using the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS). Based on raw scores of task-, emotion- and avoidance-oriented coping strategies, eight CISS coping patterns were defined and four temporal coping types were distinguished (stable favorable and unfavorable, and becoming favorable and unfavorable). When eight CISS coping patterns were analyzed, the results revealed that schizophrenia patients used emotion related coping patterns 5.5 times more frequently, and task and task-avoidance coping patterns significantly less often than subjects without mental health conditions. Coping patterns had different associations with current levels of dysphoric mood and emotional distress, self-construct variables, and satisfaction with quality of life. In addition, coping patterns of 62.2% of schizophrenia patients remained stable over time, became unfavorable among 19.6% of patients, and became favorable among 18.2% of patients. Each temporal coping type is associated with a specific pattern of changes in clinical and psychosocial variables. The identified coping patterns and temporal coping types may illustrate the diversity of coping strategies used by schizophrenia patients and may be an important source of knowledge for patients who struggle with the illness and for mental health professionals who seek to assist them.