Coping Strategies and Psychological Maladjustment/Adjustment: A Meta-Analytic Approach with Children and Adolescents Exposed to Natural Disasters

Background Following disasters, children and adolescents can use coping strategies to feel better. A growing body of studies investigated the relation between them and maladjustment/adjustment, i.e., negative symptomatology/positive indicators of development. Yet, these constructs are studied separately. Objective We conducted two meta-analyses to examine the mean correlation between disaster-related coping strategies and indicators of maladjustment/adjustment following natural disasters in children and adolescents, considering the role of some moderators. Methods We used PsycINFO, PubMed, Eric, and Scopus databases to identify articles on natural disasters (filters: participants ≤ 18 years at the disaster, peer-review, English language). Inclusion required investigating the relation between at least one coping strategy and at least one indicator of maladjustment (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder, depression) and/or adjustment (e.g., self-efficacy, emotion understanding), for a total of 26 studies (k = 64, n = 9692, for maladjustment; k = 37, n = 3504, for adjustment). Results There were global positive significant correlations between coping strategies and negative symptomatology (rpooled = .23) for maladjustment, and positive indicators (rpooled = .17) for adjustment. Negative symptomatology positively correlated with escape (r = .19), social isolation (r = .15), submission (r = .64), and opposition (r = .16); positive indicators positively correlated with problem solving (r = .31), social support (r = .22), and submission (r = .30). We found a moderating role of age, disaster type, and continent for maladjustment. Conclusions The study presented an analysis of the coping strategies that can be effective for children and adolescents dealing with natural disasters.