Comparison of Cognitive Coping Strategies with Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in Adolescents and Adults

Coping skills like other cognitive skills develop with increasing age and are very effective in efficient dealing with life stressful situations. Investigation of coping skills can be predictive of their future of anxiety and depression status in adolescents and choose of intervention methods to prevent pathology in the future. The present study is concerned with investigation of relationship between cognitive coping strategies with symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescents as compared with adults. The design of this research is casual-comparative. Four hundred and fifty high school students (223 males and 227 females) and 390 adults (education employees, 210 males and 180 females) were randomly selected. Participants completed Garnefski and Legerstee cognitive coping strategies and SCL-90 inventory. Variables of this research are cognitive coping strategies and symptoms of anxiety and depression that were compared and assessed in two groups. Findings indicated that all cognitive coping strategies are used by adolescents less than adults that the most difference is in positive reappraisal strategy (12.31 ± 4 in adults vs. 8.49 ± 2.91 in adolescents) (F=312.11, p=0.001(. In addition, in both of groups, variance of anxiety and depression symptoms is explained by using of cognitive coping strategies (R2 =0.391, 0.441, 0.332, 0.385 and p<0.001). In both of groups, rumination play the most important role in anxiety and depression reporting (R2 =0.19, 0.55, 0.31, 0.046 and p< 0.05, p< 0.01, p<0.001). The results of study showed that cognitive coping strategies are used by adolescents less than adults.