Coping Strategies and Perceived Social Support in Wives of Persons with Alcohol Dependence Syndrome

Abstract

Background: In India alcohol is the most commonly used substance of abuse. The effect of alcoholism in husbandsmostly leads to disturbances in marital life.These effects may directly or indirectly drain out caregivers of substanceabusers. One of the most affected among caregivers is the marital partners. In other words it is the wives of substanceabusing husband who are the victims. Coping mechanisms are used by the wives to handle the stressful situation hasa vital role in reducing psychological difficulties. In case of wives with alcohol dependent husbands, the socialsupport is a buffer for crisis periods. Aim of the study: The study is aimed to enquire the coping strategies andperceived social support of the wives of persons with alcohol dependence syndrome. Material and methods: A total30 wives of persons with alcohol dependence syndrome according to ICD-10 were taken as the sample usingpurposive sample collection. Socio-demographic profile was assessed through semi-structured questionnaire whilecoping strategies was assessed through Ways of Coping Scale (1986) and the Multidimensional Scale of PerceivedSocial Support (1988) was applied to assess the perceived social support after taking their informed consent. Dataanalysis was done using SPSS for descriptive statistics. Results: The result shows that varied types of coping strategieswere used by wives of persons with alcohol dependence. In contrast the previous studies suggest use of emotionalfocused or escape avoidance coping. This study suggests that adaptive copings such as positive reappraisal, seekingsocial support and problem solving were used in comparison to escape avoidance. In contrast to previous studiesperceived social support was found to be high in this study group. Conclusion: It is well known fact that copingstrategies plays a major role in dealing with stressful life situations and perceived social support also have positiveimpact over health. Finding from this study suggests that any psychosocial intervention designed for this group mustconsider these facts and findings. Eventually these findings from the study can be used to help in enhancing thewellbeing of wives of alcohol dependents.Keywords: Alcohol dependence, coping strategies, perceived social support