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Coping with Interpersonal Stressors in Schizophrenia

  • Conference paper
Comprehensive Treatment of Schizophrenia

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Summary

Although stressful life events can trigger psychotic and depressive symptom exacerbation in schizophrenia, many patients who experience stress do not subsequently relapse. Recent versions of the vulnerability-stress-protective factors model of schizophrenia suggest that coping responses may serve as critical mediating variables. Most of the research on coping behavior in schizophrenia has focused on strategies for dealing with symptoms of the illness rather than with interpersonal stressors. Using the Coping Responses Inventory developed by Moos, we examined how 13 chronic, but clinically stable, schizophrenia outpatients and 11 demographically matched normal subjects responded to a negative interpersonal life event. Cognitively oriented problem-focused approaches (“Think of different ways to deal with the problem”) and behaviorally oriented problem-solving strategies (“Make a plan of action and follow it”) were used significantly more often by normal controls than by schizophrenic patients (p < 0.01). However, the use of cognitive or behavioral avoidance coping did not differ significantly between groups. Whereas normal controls use a wide range of coping behaviors that involves both approach and avoidance responses, the repertoire of coping responses of chronic schizophrenia patients appears, on average, to be relatively more focused on avoidance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA, 300 Medical Plaza, Room 2240, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-6968, USA

    Joseph Ventura, Keith H. Nuechterlein & Kenneth L. Subotnik

  2. Department of Psychology, UCLA, USA

    Keith H. Nuechterlein

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  1. Joseph Ventura
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  2. Keith H. Nuechterlein
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  3. Kenneth L. Subotnik
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neuropsychiatry, School of Medicine, Keio University, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 160-8582, Japan

    Haruo Kashima M.D. (Professor), Masafumi Mizuno M.D. (Instructor) & Masahiro Asai M.D. (Guest Professor) (Professor),  (Instructor) &  (Guest Professor)

  2. School of Medicine, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

    Ian R. H. Falloon M.D. (Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioural Science) (Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioural Science)

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Tokyo

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Ventura, J., Nuechterlein, K.H., Subotnik, K.L. (2002). Coping with Interpersonal Stressors in Schizophrenia. In: Kashima, H., Falloon, I.R.H., Mizuno, M., Asai, M. (eds) Comprehensive Treatment of Schizophrenia. Keio University International Symposia for Life Sciences and Medicine, vol 8. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-68514-2_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-68514-2_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Tokyo

  • Print ISBN: 978-4-431-68516-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-4-431-68514-2

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