Coping with illness -: Influence of situational, socio-demographic and social factors in a population-based representative sample

In spite of the considerable volume of current coping research there is a noticeable lack of studies based on large representative samples. In this study a sample of 2179 subjects of 16 to 96 years of age that was representative of the entire population of Germany, was asked as to how they now cope, how they have coped in the past or how they would cope with: 1. an existing illness, 2. a past illness and 3. an imagined (nonexistent) illness. The instrument used was the questionnaire version of the " Berner Bewaltigungsformen" (BEFO), a coping questionnaire with 28 systematically derived coping dimensions that are defined independently of the usual empirical-topographical dimensions (behavioural, cognitive and emotional) of the type of illness. The enquiry was concerned with the influence of varying situational (proximity of illness, subjective evaluation of personal health, psychological symptoms), socio-demographic (age, gender) and social (social support) variables on the choice of coping mechanisms. The results showed that each of these factors influences the repertoire of coping mechanisms to varying degrees. This systematic variability in a representative sample should be taken into account in any evaluation of coping with illness in clinical sub-groups.