The topic of experiencing stress is increasingly topical, as is the topic of coping strategies. There is much less talk about the effectiveness of strategies and success factors, with only one study on the latter. One of the factors is individual resilience, and one of the components of resilience is secure relationships, so I decided to investigate the link between coping strategies and marital status. Many authors also cite the partner as an important source of support in coping with stress. Therefore, I examined whether there is a link between the quality of the partner relationship and coping strategies. My hypotheses were that (1) there is a statistically significant difference between the level of perceived stress according to the marital status of the individual (single, in a long-term relationship, married or concluded partnership, divorced, widowed) and (2) a higher level of partner relationship quality correlates more positively with the choice of functional coping strategies than dysfunctional coping strategies. At the same time, higher levels of partner relationship quality correlate less well with the choice of dysfunctional strategies.
The research design is quantiitative, the data collection method is an online survey. The measuring instrument consists of four other questionnaires, which are already validated and reliable, I obtained them online and had them translated from English into Slovenian for the purposes of the thesis. My study population is the employees of social work centres in Slovenia in February and March 2023, the dropout population consists of 186 persons within the population who fully completed the questionnaire. I analysed the collected data using SPSS 27.
The data analysis showed that the level of perceived stress does not differ according to marital status, but is related to relationship satisfaction (higher levels of satisfaction positively correlate with lower levels of perceived stress). Coping strategies are also related to partner relationship satisfaction. The more satisfied people are in their relationship, the more often they use the strategies of seeking emotional support and turning to others for advice and help in stressful situations, and the less often they use the strategies of abandoning previous behaviour (giving up on their efforts) and self-blame. The results showed that those with higher resilience were more likely to use functional coping strategies (active coping, seeking emotional support, positive interpretation, planning, religion, acceptance of the situation) and less likely to use dysfunctional coping strategies (abandoning previous behaviour and self-blame) than those with lower resilience.
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