Individual, intergenerational, and contextual factors associated with coping strategies, coping variability, and...

Stress-related coping is an important mechanism of mental health functioning. However, the distribution of coping processes across various factors (e.g., individual like sex, contextual like perceived social status) remain under-explored. This study identified individual, intergenerational, and contextual factors associated with coping strategies, variability in their use (as a proxy for using strategies flexibly across contexts), and perceived coping efficacy to handle stressors among young adults.

Participants from the Nicotine Dependence in Teens study (NDIT; N = 827) completed the validated Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations scale in 2011-12 (age ~ 24). Data on many factors, including race/ethnicity, intergenerational education patterns, and perceived social status, were collected from 1999-2000 (at NDIT inception; age 12-13) to 2011-12. Linear and multinominal regressions modeled the associations between individual, intergenerational, and contextual factors and coping strategies, variability, and efficacy, separately.

Women versus men reported more frequent use of emotion-, distraction-, and social diversion-oriented strategies and higher variability levels (e.g., B_emotion=0.40, 95%CI = 0.28, 0.51), but less frequent use of task-oriented strategies and lower coping efficacy (e.g., B_efficacy=-0.46, 95%CI=-0.59, -0.32). Higher incomes, more educated mothers, and higher perceived social status in the community were associated with more frequent use of task-oriented strategies and coping efficacy, and less frequent use of emotion-oriented strategies. Other factors, including race/ethnicity, marital status, and school socio-economic status, were not robustly related to coping processes.

Findings document the distribution of coping processes across individual, intergenerational, and contextual factors among young adults, which may more broadly increase understanding of social disparities in mental health.