SELF-REPORTED COPING BEHAVIOR IN HEALTH AND DISEASE - ASSESSMENT WITHA CARD SORT GAME

The authors tested the hypothesis that individuals with a variety of s evere chronic illnesses and the healthy elderly exhibit a loss of flex ibility in their response to a variety of stressors, compared with hea lthy adults. A card sort game designed to assess self-reported coping behavior under different stressful life situations was used to compare healthy adults with individuals with multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid a rthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and the elderly. The healthy a dults were found to exhibit more variability than any of the illness g roups or the elderly. Healthy function is marked by a complex type of variability.