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Coping strategies in relatives of people with schizophrenia before and after psychiatric admission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Marcia Scazufca  and
Elizabeth Kuipers
Marcia Scazufca*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF
Elizabeth Kuipers
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF
*
Marcia Scazufca, Rua Rodésia 161-93, São Paolo-SP, CEP 05435-020, Brazil
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Abstract

Background

Most research on expressed emotion (EE) has used an empirical approach to describe relatives' ways of coping with people with schizophrenia.

Aims

To use the stress and coping model proposed by Lazarus and Folkman to examine how relatives coped with patients.

Method

Patients with DSM–III–R schizophrenia and their relatives were assessed just after hospitalisation of the patients and nine months after discharge. Both assessments included the symptoms of the patients and the coping strategies, burden, distress and levels of EE of the relatives.

Results

Fifty patients and 50 relatives were assessed at inclusion, and 31 patients and 36 relatives at follow-up. Coping strategies were used more frequently at inclusion than at follow-up. Problem-focused coping was the strategy used more often at both assessments. Avoidance coping was strongly associated with burden, distress and high EE at both assessments.

Conclusions

Ways of coping are influenced by relatives' perceptions of the situation with patients. Avoidance strategies seem to be less effective in regulating the distress of care-givers than problem-focused strategies.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 174 , Issue 2 , February 1999 , pp. 154 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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Footnotes

Declaration of interest M.S. funded by CNPq-Brasília, Brazil.

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