[The stress-coping paradigm, a complimentary contribution from social science and nursing sciences in the development...

This article provides an illustration of the combined contributions of social sciences and nursing in the development and application of knowledge. More specifically, the article presents a discussion of the respect ive contributions of the social sciences and nursing in the development of knowledge about the stress-coping paradigm. First, the significant role of the social sciences in initially developing the concepts of stress and coping if revealed through a review of different research perspectives considered to date, most notably in sociology and social psychology . After presenting some key markers in the development of nursing as a professional discipline, this paper illustrates how work developed through multidisciplinary efforts in the area of social sciences is pertinent to the development of theory, empirical research and the practice of nursing. The singular contribution of nursing to the development of knowledge in stress-coping is emphasized. The author concludes by noting that the discipline of nursing is somewhat similar to social sciences and sha res some common interests, notably with regard to phenomena such as reac tion to stress.