[Coping with illness by dialysis and tumor patients]

In the present article the coping of cancer-patients and patients with chronic renal failure is analysed and compared with each other. We isolated a pattern of strategies that was rated high by the patients, either in their own appraisal or reported by them freely. We describe the most rejected contents, the strategies of defence (threat-regulation), and also the individually experienced main impairments of the diseases. Although we analysed two different groups of illnesses, we have not been able to differentiate the respective coping patterns. The fact that the patients preferred the same strategies and rejected the same ones was a surprising outcome! The only differences were found in the freely reported impairments of the diseases. Within the group of cancer-patients we found heterogeneous strategies of defence (threat-regulation), a fact that points to the necessity of particular analysis in the research of coping.