[Coping styles in schizophrenia: study of clinical and functional variables as determinants of strategies to cope with stress].

Aim: The purpose of this study was to analyze the relation between coping styles, and both clinical and functional variables in a sample of patients with stable schizophrenia.
Methods: Forty-seven consecutive outpatients were enrolled in a cross-sectional study. A clinical assessment was performed and included: the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), the Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS), the Scale for the Assessment of Unawareness of Mental Disorder (SUMD), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), the Quality of Life Scale (QLS) and the questionnaire Short Form Health Survey 36 (SF-36). Coping strategies were assessed with the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS), identifying three main coping styles: task-, emotion- and avoidance-oriented. Three different multiple regression models with backward elimination were performed in order to discover contributing factors to coping styles.
Results: From the results of multiple regression, depressive symptoms and objective quality of life were contributing factors to task-oriented coping style, explaining about 32% of variance. Negative symptoms, subjective quality of life, self-esteem, awareness of symptomatology and attribution of symptoms to illness resulted to be contributing factors to emotion-oriented coping strategies, explaining about 60% of variance.
Discussion: These results suggested the role of some clinical and functional variables as contributing factors to coping styles. In this context, supportive and rehabilitative interventions and cognitive-behavioral therapy focused to manage psychotic symptoms and to decrease distress could help patients to employ more adaptive coping strategies and improve their outcomes.