The relationship between coping strategies and the intention to seek professional psychological help

Abstract

Coping strategies represent everything that person do in attempt to deal with (external or internal) physical, psychological, or social threats. According to some authors psychological help-seeking also represent a coping mechanism. This paper presents and discusses the research results aimed to determine the correlation between the coping strategies, measured by Brief COPE Scale (Carver, 1997), and the intention to seek professional psychological help, measured by a questionnaire (Šakotić-Kurbalija, 2011) constructed for the purposes of the broader research project that includes this study. Data were collected on a sample of 2206 women of diverse socio-economic status (19 to 76 years), from the Republic of Serbia. The results of multiple regression analysis are showing statistically significant but low correlation between the set of coping strategies and the help-seeking intentions (R=0.30; F(14.1860)=6.13, p<0.001). Individual predictors of help-seeking intentions were: Seeking of Instrumental Social Support (β=.15, p<.01), Denial (β=-.15, p<.01), Use of psychoactive substances (β=.12, p<.01), Self-blame (β=0.11, p<.01), Religion (β=.09, p<.01), Focus on and Venting of Emotions (β=.09, p<.01), Behavioral Disengagement (β=-.06, p<.05) and Active Coping (β=.06, p<.05). Low correlation between the set of coping strategies and the help-seeking intentions can be interpreted as a result of one’s ability to deal with distress without professional help, as well as the lack of awareness about the benefits of professional psychological help. It can also be assumed that the intention to seek professional psychological help is determined by some factors other than coping strategies