Mothers of preschool children: coping effectiveness.

Abstract

Abstract Public health nurses are actively involved in helping family members cope with stresses in their daily lives. They are looking for research data about methods people actually use to cope with these stresses and their relative effectiveness. This research study was an analysis of the coping responses used by 153 mothers of healthy preschool children when experiencing stress in their everyday lives with the children, the perceived effectiveness of these responses, and factors related to the coping process. Problem‐focused responses were more effective than emotion‐focused responses. The specific responses that were found most effective were handling the problem in small pieces, drawing on past experience, talking the problem over with someone else, not worrying about the problem, and viewing the problem objectively. Factors affecting the responses used were the type of event; its perceived stressfulness; mother's age, education, and employment status; and mother's appraisal of her life in general and appraisal of her ability to cope as a mother.