The Development of Self Structures and Active Coping

In addition to cope with usual stressful circumstances at work, nowadays, it is important to examine what kind of mental capacities of medical staff are adaptive in respect of a new type of stress – job insecurity. Special focus is put upon self structures as personality determinants and the role they have in coping.. The aim of the study was to determine the role of the self structures in active coping with job insecurity. It was supposed that the increasing integration of self structures leads to increasing use of active coping strategies. Perceived job insecurity was measured by The job insecurity perception scale (Knežević and Majstorović, 2013). The Ego Functioning Questionnaire (Majstorović, Legault and Green-Demers, 2008) was used to evaluate types of ego-functioning; coping were assessed by the Cybernetic coping scale (Edwards and Baglioni, 1993). In order to test the hypothesis the multivariate regression analysis was developed with self-regulation as predictor and active coping strategy as a criterion. A significant model F(3, 306) = 26,73, p < 0,001, was obtained with all the predictors selected as significant. The prediction directions were as expected Integrated and Ego-investing self were positive predictors (β = 0,35, p < 0,001, and β = 0,16, p < 0,01, respectively), while the impersonal self singled out as a negative predictor (β = –0,13, p < 0,05). The results have shown that the development of self structures is valid predictor for the active coping of medical staff when facing with job insecurity.