Impact of demographic factors on usage of stress coping strategies chosen by elderly people

Background. Old age is a particular time in which people experience plenty of changes – both progressive and regressive. Their social and economic position is changing, and human beings are confronted with a lot of difficult situations, such as the death of a spouse, illness, retirement – which particularly require them to apply a proper strategy of coping with stress.

Objectives. The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between the demographic factors and strategies of coping with stress used by elderly people.

Material and methods. The study was carried out on a group of 296 residents of Szczecin who are over 60 years old. It was conducted by means of a diagnostic survey with the use of the Inventory to Measure Coping Strategies with Stress – Mini-COPE, as well as an original questionnaire form. The statistical analysis was conducted by means of SPSS Statistics 21.0 (p ≤ 0.05).

Results. The results have proven the existence of a relationship between the strategies of coping with stress used by individuals over 60 and factors such as gender, level of education, economic status and financial situation.

Conclusions. When coping with stress, men and women apply different strategies. In case of individuals over 60, the higher level of education and financial status they declare, the more eager they are to use active strategies of coping with stress. Seniors with a lower level of education and lower economic status have more trouble adapting to difficult situations. They have problems with taking the initiative and actively dealing with stressful events. They also more often use psychoactive substances as part of their coping mechanism.