Novel insights on greek students’ coping strategies
Novel insights on greek students’ coping strategies

Summary/Abstract: College life requires more physical and emotional resources from students than high school. As a result of these higher demands, it is common for college students to experience greater levels of stress. If stress is not dealt with effectively, individuals suffer psychological symptoms such as low self esteem, reduced motivation, anxiety, depression. Effective coping strategies facilitate the return to a balanced state, reducing the negative effects of stress. The data collection was carried out by filling anonymously the Toulouse’s scale of Coping, which consists of 54 statements expressing coping strategies. In total, 18 positive and negative coping strategies, classified in six strategy categories (focus, social support, withdrawal, change of attitude, control, denial) and three strategy fields (behavioural, information seeking, emotional) were tested. The use of the studied strategies was quantified in three levels (low, moderate, high). The study cohort (n=999) was recruited from the Greek educational system, among 5 cities of Greece. The data show that all coping strategies are used by the majority of the study participants (>95%), though the intensity may vary from person to person, leading to different mean values. Women, as expected were found to implement more coping strategies in general, with social support, change and withdrawal to be applied the most (p< 0,0001). No statistically significant differences were found concerning age or place of origin, as expected. Surprisingly, even though all students employ a variety of coping strategies, geographical location of each college or university may favor a preference towards certain strategies. Consequently, there is evidence that physical surroundings and learning environment of smaller university cities influence coping strategies, such as social support, emotion, positive strategies and focus.

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