Cross-cultural assessment of coping behavior under chronic stress. A three-center study of 407 + 404 + 406 students

Abstract

Age of onset of major psychiatric disorders is often between 17–24 years; a period when most young adults pursue higher education. Indeed around 35–50% of students drop out prematurely likely due to insufficient coping skills under chronic stress. Finding high risk individuals is thus of high importance. Here, students ( n = 1,217) from the U.S. and Switzerland completed a coping and health questionnaire. Structure analyses were carried out on these data by means of a Neural Network approach. We found 2 highly stable and reproducible scales reflecting basic coping behavior in terms of “activity” (activity-passivity) and “defeatism” (defeatism-resilience). Correlation analyses revealed a relationship between high defeatism scale scores and impaired general health. Results indicate that the defeatism scale represents a stable, socio-culturally independent personality trait linked to unfavorable coping behavior. Combining the two questionnaires seems a powerful screening tool for high risk individuals under chronic stress.