PARTNERS IN ADVERSITY .4. COPING AND MOOD

This paper presents details of an interviewer-based measure of coping, completed in the context of a study examining the mental health of th ree groups of married women following their exposure to recent severe adversity. For one group a marital partner had recently died and for a nother group a marital partner had recently experienced a myocardial i nfarction. The third group consisted of those women recently entering a Women's Aid refuge. Initial interviews were completed about 6 weeks following event experience. Coping and mood state were reassessed abou t 4 months after the events that had recruited the samples to the stud y. The measures of coping response were adapted from the coping domain s of 'fighting spirit', 'helplessness', 'fatalism', 'avoidance' and 'a nger/frustration' assessed in the Mental Adjustment to Cancer Scale. D etails are provided of the construction of a summary measure of coping response based upon the above domains and of its relationship with fo llow-up mood state after allowance for mood levels at initial intervie w.