Estrategias de afrontamiento al estrés y apoyo social

Abstract

The evidence shows that the perception of social support and the stress coping strategies influences individual health. Improper strategies can produce different pathologies (cardiovascular disorders, peptic ulcer, etc.). This work presents the possible relationship between different stress coping strategies and the perception of social support (family and friends) in the genesis and development of acute myocardial infarction (MI) and peptic ulcer (UP). We also tried to discover predictive variables of such pathologies. The sample was constituted by 105 males: 35 with a first diagnostic of MI; 35 with UP and 35 healthy people, with an age range of 30-60 years. The following instruments were used: 1) General risk factors questionnaire; 2) Scale of stress coping strategies (Chorot and Sandín, 1987); 3) Social Support Scale (Vaux, Riedel and Steward, 1987). Spanish version of Sandín and Chorot, 1990). The data was analysed using Anova oneway- variace análysis and descriminate analysis. Significant differences between groups were observed. The subjects with MI presented a greater perceptual degree of family support, than the remaining groups. Equally, it was this same group which made more use of avoidance strategies focusing on the emotional and situational to face the cisrcunstances. The most predictive variable of the studied pathologies turned out to be "help perception on the parte of friends" (even more than from the family itself). The most predictive strategy was "selfcontrol".