PREHOSPITALIZATION COPING STYLES OF PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS

Abstract

A crisis oriented coping model is presented in which life events and hospitalization are viewed as serving an instrumental role in people's attempts to negotiate changes in others' expectations. Adoption of an instrumental view of hospitalization focuses attention on its meaning as a social event and locates it within the context of forces operating in people's current life situations. Several questions and hypotheses derived from the model and from the literature of life events are examined empirically. Ninety-nine psychiatric patients were compared to a matched sample of nonhospitalized controls on the frequency and pattern of events which had occurred in their lives during the preceding year. A dramatic rise in events over the course of the year was discovered for patients, compared to a negligible rise for controls. Most events in patients' lives occurred as a result of some action on the part of patients themselves, rather than having been imposed on them by circumstances beyond their control. Also, most events in patients' lives were directly involved in the problems prompting hospitalization. In addition, the frequency of events differed among patients according to patients' preferred explanation for their troubles.