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Coping with Acute Health Crises

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Handbook of Clinical Health Psychology

Abstract

How can the process and determinants of coping with acute health crises be described? What are the major adaptive tasks seriously ill patients encounter and what types of coping skills do they use? How does the patient adapt to the existential crisis created by learning that he or she has a life-threatening illness? What stressors are encountered by health care professionals and how can they facilitate effective coping and adaptation by patients and their families? I deal with these questions here by presenting a conceptual framework of physical illness as a life crisis and describing how patients and staff cope with the stress of illness and of treatment.

Preparation of this chapter was supported by NIMH Grant 28177 and Veterans Administration Health Services Research and Development Funds.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Social Ecology Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, 94305, USA

    Rudolf H. Moos

  2. The Veterans Administration Medical Center, Palo Alto, California, 94305, USA

    Rudolf H. Moos

Authors
  1. Rudolf H. Moos
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, USA

    Theodore Millon  & Catherine J. Green  & 

  2. Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA

    Robert B. Meagher Jr.

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© 1982 Plenum Press, New York

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Moos, R.H. (1982). Coping with Acute Health Crises. In: Millon, T., Green, C.J., Meagher, R.B. (eds) Handbook of Clinical Health Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3412-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3412-5_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-3414-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-3412-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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