Coping assessment

When adversity strikes, when mental and physical functioning and health are at risk, humans ‘fight back’. Humans come with and develop a set of adaptive processes that gives them the potential to fend off disaster, to reshape challenges and to transform stressful experiences into psychological growth. Coping describes some of these adaptive processes (Coelho et al., 1974; White, 1974). Researchers agree that how people cope makes a material difference to the impact which stressful life events (including illnesses and chronic medical conditions) will have on them, both concurrently and long-term. However, the nature of these coping processes and how to assess them remain issues of hot contention. Overview of the field