The Relationships among Coping Styles and Fatigue in an Ethnically Diverse Sample

Abstract

The present study focused on coping strategies among African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and idiopathic chronic fatigue (ICF). The coping strategies examined were measured by using the COPE Scales, which assess Seeking Emotional Social Support, Positive Reinterpretation and Growth, Acceptance, Denial, Turning to Religion, Behavioral Disengagement, and Focusing on and Venting Emotions. In addition, the four coping strategies specifically designed for people with CFS, including maintaining activity, accommodating to the illness, focusing on symptoms, and information-seeking, were used in this study. It was hypothesized that African Americans and Latinos in comparison to European Americans would be more likely to use religious coping, behavioral disengagement, and denial. As predicted, African Americans were significantly more likely to turn to religion than European Americans, and Latinos and African Americans used denial significantly more often than European Americans. An additional finding was that focusing on symptoms was associated with greater fatigue and more physical disability among African Americans. Within the Latino sample, acceptance was related to greater fatigue and less physical disability, and greater optimism predicted less mental disability. Among European American participants, maintaining activity was related to less mental disability, whereas accommodating to the illness predicted more physical disability. These results indicate that coping varies among various ethnic groups with CFS and ICF; however, denial is consistently related to less adaptive outcomes. Therefore, healthcare professionals should find ways to reduce patient use of denial and promote alternative strategies for managing life events.

Keywords:

• Coping
• Optimism
• Fatigue
• Ethnicity
• Health Outcome

Request for reprints should be addressed to Mary Gloria Njoku, Center for Community Research, DePaul University, 990 W. Fullerton Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614, USA. The authors appreciate the financial support provided by NIAID (Grant No. A136295).1 ^, 2

Notes

1. Given the number of variables, and small sample sizes for the ethnic groups, these analyses would only be possible if the CFS and ICF groups were combined for each ethnic group. However, before combining the CFS and ICF groups, it was important to determine whether there were any significant differences between the two fatigue status groups on the dependent variables for each ethnic group.

2. All measures did not total 70 as all participants did not complete every measure.