[Assessing coping strategies in alcoholics: Comparison while controlling for personality disorders, cognitive...

Better coping skills are related to greater capacity for dealing with stressful situations. This relationship could be relevant for the prevention of alcohol-misuse relapse. Relapse rate is higher among severe alcoholics. The current study examines whether this may be due to a lack of coping skills in those cases. The COPE (Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced) is a questionnaire used for assessing coping strategies.

COPE scores of 216 alcohol inpatients are compared while controlling for personality disorders (PDs), cognitive impairment (CI) and benzodiazepine misuse (BM).

Patients with PDs score higher on the scales of Humor, Venting emotions, Substance use and Use of instrumental support. However, there are no differences in COPE scores attributable to CI or BM.

Alcoholics with Personality disorders use maladaptive coping strategies. Patients presenting CI or BM have low capacity for introspection and are unable to properly evaluate their own abilities, so that they tend to give a socially favorable but unrealistic image of themselves. Longitudinal studies are needed to evaluate the predictive validity of the coping skills before training alcoholics, who are especially difficult to assess due to their lower capacity for objective self-observation.