Correlates of coping styles in psychotic illness

Both integration and sealing over have been identified as global, clinically distinct coping styles with the psychotic illness and integration was found to be associated with a better outcome. We studied a series of potential correlates of these coping styles.

A total of 75 psychiatric patients in a recovery phase after a psychotic episode were studied. All patients filled out the Frankfurt Self-Concept Inventory and the Parental Bonding Instrument; the Integration/Sealing over Scale and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale were completed by an investigator for all patients during a semistructured interview. Besides, some sociodemographic and clinical data were collected.

A relationship was found between the integrative coping style and absence of negative symptoms, housing with partner or alone indicating more social competence and a diagnosis of psychotic illness other than (paranoid) schizophrenia.

As only 25% of the variance were explained, other--still unknown--factors are also of importance.