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Coping Among Advocates With And Without Lived Experience Of Sexual Assault, Martina Mihelicova

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Volunteer sexual assault survivor advocates are vital to the provision of services by rape crisis centers. Volunteer advocates are exposed to trauma by witnessing the emotional and psychological impact of sexual assault on survivors. Trauma exposure places providers at risk for experiencing negative outcomes, such as vicarious trauma or secondary traumatic stress. Additionally, advocates who are survivors of sexual assault may be at higher risk for these negative outcomes. However, trauma exposure can also be a source of positive outcomes, such as posttraumatic growth. Focusing on advocate strengths, such as coping and self-care strategies that help advocates overcome distress during …

Capturing Resilience In Context: Development And Validation Of A Situational Judgment Test Of Resilience, Yuejia Teng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study developed a 40-item situational judgment test (SJT) to measure resilience in context. Undergraduate samples were used in the study and situational stems of the SJT consisted of both daily stressors and major life crises; each response alternative was designed to reflect one of five resilience-related factors. A crowd-sourcing method was utilized to create scoring keys for the SJT. The Resilience SJT demonstrated good psychometric properties, and showed evidence of construct and criterion-related validity. The SJT scores moderately correlated with scores from two resilience Likert scales, a hardiness scale as well as a negative affect scale. Compared to …

Testing A Skills Training Course For Use In A Peer-Delivered Mental Health Intervention, Samantha L. Bernecker

Doctoral Dissertations

Millions of people who could benefit from mental health services do not receive treatment. If non-professional peers could learn to administer basic psychotherapeutic interventions to each other, taking turns as care provider and care recipient, this unmet need for mental health care could be partially filled. This study sought to test whether non-professionals could learn supportive psychotherapy skills from a massively scalable, free online course. Thirty pairs of individuals who were experiencing psychological distress or who wished to increase their mental well-being were enrolled in the study, and 19 pairs completed the prototype online course. Objective raters assessed participants’ skills …

The Transgenerational Transmission Of Emotion Regulation: The Effect Of Maternal Coping On Child Executive Functioning, Devon J. Harrison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a recognized link between maternal trauma history and adverse child outcomes, however the mechanisms underlying this intergenerational relationship are less clearly understood. Maternal emotion regulation, as measured by coping style, may help explain this cross-generational transmission, implicating the role of a mother’s coping in her child’s capacity to plan, attend, and self-inhibit. Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the association between maternal coping style and child executive functioning (EF) in a sample of 188 urban mothers and their pre-adolescent and adolescent children. Data was analyzed from a larger cross-sectional and cross-generational study of maternal difficulties …

Latino/A Adolescents And Young Adults Coping With Parental Cancer Within A Cultural Context, Amanda Mia Marin-Chollom

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Parental cancer has a strong influence on the psychological well-being of children at all ages. Children and adolescents whose parents have more distress and advanced disease tend to have lower rates of healthy psychological adjustment. Children from the U.S. Latino/a population may face additional challenges, such as racism and acculturative stress that compound the stress of having a parent with cancer. At the same time, facets of the Latino/a culture may play a crucial role in how Latino/a adolescents adapt to parental cancer, specifically the Latino/a cultural values of familismo (familism), espíritu (spirit), and respeto (respect).

This cross-sectional study examined …

Relationships Of Weight-Related Dissatisfaction, Body Image Flexibility, And Coping In Women, Pooja Shah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The present study examined the relationships between body image flexibility, body image dissatisfaction, body image evaluation, and specific coping factors based on the WEIGHTCOPE measure. Body image flexibility was also examined as a mediator of the relationship between body image dissatisfaction and weight-related coping factors in women. Methods: An online link of the survey (Qualtrics Research Software Program) was distributed through social media and word of mouth to women of all body shapes and sizes (N= 267). The survey included the BICS as a measure of body image dissatisfaction, the MBSR (AE) as a measure of body …

United States Elite Youth Tennis Athletes’ Use Of Psychological Strategies In Competition, Emily Earlynn Lauer

Doctoral Dissertations

Young athletes are routinely faced with stressors and competitive structures that collegiate and adult athletes face. Psychological skills training (PST) can provide young athletes with strategies and skills to cope with these stressors and ultimately influence sport performance (Vealey, 2007). To date, the only study exploring in-competition experiences of young athletes was with participants between 16 and 18 years of age (Van Raalte, Brewer, Rivera, & Petitpas, 1994). The current study is the first investigation on the in-competition experiences of children and adolescents in sport. Twelve elite young tennis athletes (M[subscript]age = 11.83) who trained within a Player Development program …

Gender, Population Type, And Coping As Predictors Of Ptsd Symptom Severity, Stacey A. Kerr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has demonstrated that a salient predictor of PTSD is experiencing a traumatic event. Additional research has indicated that there are other risk factors involved with predicting the development of PTSD including gender, population type, and emotion-focused coping. The purpose of the current study was to examine gender, population type, the interaction effect between gender and population type, and emotion-focused coping, specifically avoidant emotional coping and active emotional coping, as independent predictors of PTSD symptom severity. In total, 124 individuals participated in the current study. The sample consisted of 64 civilians and 60 military personnel. The results indicated that gender …

Exploring The Impostor Phenomenon's Behavioral Characteristics: How Do Gay Male Leaders And Impostors Cope?, Donald B. Scott

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this mixed-methods case study was to explore and describe the coping skills used to overcome 9 behavioral characteristics by gay men serving in civic or nonprofit leadership roles who are identified as experiencing the impostor phenomenon (IP) by the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS; Clance, 1985).

Methodology: This study used a mixed-methods, descriptive case study approach to collect both quantitative and qualitative data about 14 study participants. Each completed the 20-question CIPS that represented the quantitative strand of the study prior to an interview that included 10 semistructured interview questions designed to collect rich, descriptive data. …

Applying A Cognitive-Behavioral Model To Conceptualize Burnout And Coping For Teachers In Urban Schools, Daniel Camacho

Dissertations

Teachers in urban schools, facing a myriad of daily stressors and oftentimes without sufficient knowledge and skills to manage the social and emotional needs of their students and themselves, experience stress and burnout at levels that cause them to leave the teaching profession at alarming rates. Research pertaining to teaching stress, burnout, and coping has largely been devoted to enumerating the stressors that teachers experience, the impact of burnout on teachers and their students, and relating type of coping strategies that teachers employ. This body of literature falls short of illuminating what makes the teaching profession so inherently stressful, the …

Coping With Exposure To Community Violence: Assessing The Role Of Avoidance In Reducing Delinquency And Aggression In Low-Income Urban Adolescents, Cara Marie Diclemente

Master's Theses

Exposure to community violence has disabling effects on the mental health of youth in the US, with high rates of exposure for African American adolescents from underserved, urban communities. Past literature suggests that avoidant coping, specifically behavioral avoidance, may be most useful for youth exposed to uncontrollable stress. The current study assessed the utility of coping strategies in reducing aggression and delinquency in 267 sixth through eighth grade African American youth. First, confirmatory factor analyses revealed a three-factor structure of coping: cognitive approach, behavioral approach, and avoidance. Next, moderated moderation findings showed that for boys, avoidance and approach strategies increased …

Three Measures Of Coping In Video Games (Civ-Iii): The Development, Construct Validation, And Profile Analysis Of The Civ-Iii, Chelsea M. Hughes

Theses and Dissertations

Video games provide a competitive, goal-oriented environment. They involve individuals who often seek intentionally to frustrate their opponents’ goals. The gaming community is made up of players who vary in their interpersonal style, learning histories, and skill levels. In this rich and dynamic environment, stress is a common experience. Given the prevalence of gameplay in the population and the frequency of gameplay among gamers, it is important to examine coping responses to stressors, particularly maladaptive ones. The present research entails three studies. In Study 1, I use exploratory factor analyses to develop three scales purported to measure maladaptive coping strategies …

Coping Styles As Predictors Of Alcohol Consumption With Undergraduate College Students Perceiving Stress, Shoshana S. Twersky

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Coping was examined as a potential predictor for alcohol consumption with an undergraduate college population. Eighty-nine undergraduate students in the United States participated in the study by completing a survey between February and October 2016. A hierarchical multiple regression was used to analyze whether specific coping styles predict problematic drinking among undergraduate college students who report experiences of perceived stress. The following self-report questionnaires measured the variables: the subjective portion of the Perceived Stress Scale, Coping Strategies Inventory-Short Form (CSI-S), Cahalan’s (1969) Quantity Frequency Index, and a background demographic questionnaire developed to assess basic demographic information. Findings revealed that weekend …

Investigating The Efficacy Of The Coping Strategies Adolescents Use To Handle Cyberbullying, Stacey Neaville

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cyberbullying can negatively influence adolescents' overall wellbeing. Previous studies on cyberbullying provided knowledge about ways youths cope with cyberbullying; yet the literature lacks information about the efficacy of the coping strategies of cyberbullying victims. The purpose of this straight qualitative study was to investigate what coping strategies cyberbullying victims found effective for handling cyberbullying. The transactional model of coping, approach-avoidance coping, and self-efficacy theory formed the conceptual model to explore, analyze, and understand coping with cyberbullying. Using flyers and snowball sampling, 6 adolescents in Grades 10 to 12 were recruited to participate in the study. Data from semistructured phone interviews …

Monitoring And Blunting Coping Style Effects On College Student Processing Of Health Information Via Social Media, Katherine Marie Aguirre

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The dissemination of public health messages via social media is a growing phenomenon that is changing the health communication landscape (Chou, Hunt, Beckjord, Mojer, & Hesse, 2009). Few studies have investigated how individuals process health-threatening information. This study addressed this gap in knowledge. Specifically, the current study investigated the impact of coping style on an individual's attention to health-threatening and health-promoting words on an attention task. The current study also investigated the impact of coping style on the recall of health-threatening, health-promoting, and neutral words contained in a diabetes health message. In addition, the current study investigated if coping style …

Healing From Racism With Compassion Meditation: Effects Of Coping On Mental Health, Courtney Chan

CMC Senior Theses

This study examines whether Compassion Meditation (CM) can help ethnic minority college students heal from race-related stress. The present study hypothesized that through participation in a CM intervention, the augmentation of adaptive coping strategies (i.e., self-compassion) and the reduction of maladaptive coping strategies (i.e., internalization, defined as self-blame, and detachment, defined as social isolation) would reduce depression and PTSD. Participants (N = 9) participated in an 8-session weekly CM intervention and completed three questionnaires at the beginning, middle, and end of the intervention. Results demonstrated that increasing self-compassion predicted decreases in depression, and that reducing coping via detachment predicted …

Depression And Anxiety In Emerging Adults : The Impact Of Executive Function And Coping, Elisabeth J. O'Rourke

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Emerging adulthood is a developmental period marked by increased anxiety related to academic, social, and professional stressors. The ability to successfully cope with stress is strongly negatively related to mental health outcomes. Furthermore, recent studies indicate a connection between executive function impairment, anxiety and depression. The current study examines executive functioning (EF), coping, anxiety, and depression in a sample of 210 emerging adults (NMales = 131, Mage = 19.14). Additionally, the relation between EF and coping is explored. Finally, coping’s effect on the relation between EF and outcome (anxiety and depression) is investigated. The results demonstrate that males and females …

Vicarious Trauma Coping And Self-Care Practices Among Trauma Therapists., Annette Zaccari

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Therapists who specialize in trauma therapy are indirectly exposed traumatic events presented by clients within the therapeutic relationship. The potential consequences for trauma therapists may be the risk of vicarious trauma. Effective coping and self-care are essential in the practice of trauma work. The research question for this study is: Do coping skills and self-care practices in trauma therapists moderate the disruptive effect of vicarious trauma on the fulfillment of their psychological needs (trust/dependence and control)? The purpose of this research study was to examine quantitatively, the role of trauma therapists' beliefs in the effectiveness of coping skills and time …

The Relationship Between Coping Strategies And Burnout For Caregivers Of Adjudicated Youth, Debra Marie Dix

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the human services field little is known about the impact of coping strategies on the problem of burnout for primary caregivers of delinquent youth in placement. The purpose of this correlational research was to examine the relationship between coping strategies, youth psychopathology, and burnout. This study was based on Maslach's theory of burnout and Lazarus and Folkman's transactional model of stress and coping. To assess the prevalence of burnout and coping strategies, 82 primary caregivers of adjudicated youth in placement in the state of Michigan, completed self-report questionnaires: the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Brief COPE Inventory, and the Child …

Lived Experiences And Coping Styles Of Alaskan Women With Opioid Use Disorders, Faith May Golden

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Death caused by opioid abuse has increased in recent years, and women in the state of Alaska have been significantly impacted by this opioid crisis. Previous researchers have indicated a possible connection between opioid use and sub-clinical PTSD criteria. The purpose of this grounded theory study was to develop a theory regarding the presence of PTSD diagnostic criteria in this population, to identify patterns in past traumas and other life stressors, and to investigate coping strategies in 43 Alaskan women who sought treatment for opioid use. Archived data in the form of therapy notes were analyzed using grounded theory techniques …

Anxiety And Healthcare Utilization Among Mothers Of Children With Mental Health Disorders, Maria Lynn Perrotta

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Anxiety can influence an individual's decision-making process; however, researchers have yet to establish whether anxiety has an impact on the healthcare utilization practices of mothers of children with a mental health diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to assess whether trait anxiety, coping styles, and self-efficacy in mothers of children with a mental health diagnosis affected their healthcare utilization decisions. The transactional model of stress and coping was used to analyze the impact of children with mental health disorders on their caretakers. For this study, a quantitative, cross-sectional research design was employed. The 4 survey tools, administered through SurveyMonkey.com …

A Narrative Analysis Of Resilience And Coping In Persons Diagnosed With Multiple Sclerosis, Mildred Christian Alford

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A Narrative Analysis of Resilience and Coping in

Persons Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis

by

Mildred C. Alford

Ph.D., Ed., Berne International Graduate University, 1998

M.S. Ed., Texas A & M University, Commerce, 1989

B.S., Psychology, University of Houston, 1976

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Health Psychology

Walden University

June 2017

A Phenomenological Study: Coping Skills Of Gay Men In Amateur Sports, Jesuel Alamo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The world of sports has traditionally been known for promoting masculine behaviors, including a resistance to homosexuality. Research supports that gay men in sports have historically encountered prejudice and discrimination. Although the social climate has experienced change regarding homophobic discrimination and prejudice, research shows that challenges still exist for gay men who participate in sports; furthermore, to date, research could not be located that addresses the coping skills of gay men in amateur sports. This research addressed the lack of qualitative studies on the experiences of gay men who participate in amateur sports and on their use of coping skills. …