Stress, coping and mental health : applications to adolescents in custody

LITERATURE REVIEW Stress and coping are some of the most widely studied phenomena in psychology today. Several important theories concerning stress, resilience, and coping have been postulated. Careful review of the literature in this area suggests that firstly stress is a heterogeneous set of environmental situations or events which can be classified and which require different responses and result in different effects; secondly a relationship between types of stress, levels of perceived control, styles of coping and measures of well-being or maladjustment exists. Further review of research concerning the link between mental illness and coping strategies reveals that adults and adolescents at risk of, or currently suffering from depression or anxiety are more likely to use less problem-focused coping and more emotion-focused coping. It is suggested that conduct disordered adolescents are more likely to have experienced chronic severe stress and therefore use more emotion-focused coping responses. Further research is necessary, linking coping responses of conduct disordered adolescents with different types of stress, and differentiating between pure and comorbid conduct disordered youth. EMPIRICAL STUDY It has been suggested that reacting to a chronic severe stressor with avoidance, particularly behavioural avoidance coping responses is adaptive, and that a background of chronic severe stress leads to low resilience and a low level of approach coping skills. Residents (N=50) of a youth detention centre completed the Coping Responses Inventory ‚ÄövÑvÆ Youth (CRI-Y) and the Adolescent Psychopathology Scale (APS) , and 61 students from state schools completed only the CRI-Y. As expected, residents used more avoidant coping, more behavioural coping, and less approach coping than controls. Most of the stressors reported by residents were chronic and severe (98%), as compared to 6.5% of controls' stressors. As many as 57% of Ashley participants scored positive for at least one emotional disorder and they used less behavioural approach coping strategies than those suffering from conduct disorder only. It is suggested that the adaptiveness of avoidant coping as a reaction to chronic severe stress must be recognised and that specialised coping programs could help address low approach coping abilities in this group.