Depression and ways of coping with stress: A preliminary study

Coping with stress is defined as all activities undertaken by a human in a stressful situation. The effect of stress on depression, its role in triggering the subsequent phases of the disease, and the factors that mediate the stress-depression relationship become more and more often subjects of research in psychiatry and psychology. Factors important for the formation of depressive symptoms and disease progression are significantly associated with coping strategies used in the face of stress.

Stress is most often thought of as something negative and harmful. In fact, stress causes adverse effects only when it is too strong or lasts too long and thus exceeds the adaptive capacity of the individual. Moderate stress facilitates adaptation to environmental demands, thereby stimulating intellectual growth.

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The effect of stress on depression, its role in triggering the subsequent phases of the disease, and the factors that mediate the stress-depression relationship are increasingly common topics of research in psychiatry and psychology. Currently, depression is understood as a multifactorial disorder. Interacting genetic, biological and psychological factors contribute to the pathogenesis. A popular explanation of the depression etiology has recently become the “predisposition-stress” model. This approach is based on the assumption that people who have a genetically determined predisposition to a particular mental disorder can develop the disease only due to stressful life events

Identify the cause of stress

Learning how to identify stressors gives the ability to eliminate causes of stress and thus to avoid or alleviate its effects. Coping with stress is defined as all activities undertaken in a stressful situation. It is an adaptive process based on primary and secondary appraisals. Dealing with stress is predominantly classified as a process, strategy, or style. The process approach involves subcategories called strategies or ways of coping with stress. Process is understood as a series of strategies changing over time and depending on the psycho-physical characteristic of the individual. Style refers to the correlated set of coping strategies typically used in difficult situations. It is an individual pattern of reaction consistent across situations

1. Patients with depression more often use ineffective and avoidance strategies to cope with stress compared to healthy controls,

2. There is an association between depression severity measured by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and particular strategies of coping with stress,

3. Women and men differ significantly in preferred ways of coping with stress.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3852369/