Coping Strategies as Moderators of the Relation Between Individual Race-Related Stress and Mental Health Symptoms for African American Women

Greer, Tawanda M.

doi:10.1177/0361684311399388

Cited by 55 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(110 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Avoidant styles of coping have been associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in mixed race low-income single mothers (Hall et al, 1991) and in African American women in general (Mitchel et al, 2006). However, in other studies, no association between avoidant coping and depressive symptoms was found in mixed race single mothers (Samuels-Dennis, 2007), and a weak negative correlation between emotion-focused cognitive debriefing and depressive symptoms was found in a sample of female African American college students (Greer, 2011). These results are equivocal and, therefore, the nature of this relationship in black women requires further exploration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Coping with Depression in Single Black Mothers

Atkins

2016

Issues in Mental Health Nursing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Very little information exists in the literature about what black women do when they experience symptoms of depression. The purpose of this descriptive study was to analyze the responses of 208 community-residing black single mothers, aged 18 to 45, to an open-ended question asking, “What do you do to feel better when you are feeling down in the dumps?” The theoretical bases of the Ways of Coping Checklist, were used to facilitate categorizing their responses into a coping scale and then a particular coping profile. Percentages were used to categorize the frequency of the responses into the respective coping scale and to categorize the frequency of the combined responses of each woman into a respective coping profile. Of the 333 responses that the women provided, 327 were useable. Findings indicated that a majority of responses fell into the Escape-Avoidance category (n = 206; 63%), followed by the Seeking Social Support (n = 60, 18.3%), Positive Reappraisal (n = 40; 12.2%), Planful Problem Solving (n = 12; 3.7%), Distancing (n = 3; 1%), and Self-Controlling (n = 6; 1.8%) categories. No responses fit the Confrontive Coping or Accepting Responsibility categories and none of the responses indicated that the women sought professional help. Of the 176 women who provided answers to the study question, more than half (64.2%; n = 113) gave only emotion-focused responses, 2.8% (n = 5) gave only problem-focused responses, 2.8% (n = 5) gave mixed responses, and 30.2% (n = 53) reported social support seeking. Implications for future research, cultural theory, and nursing practice are addressed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Coping with Depression in Single Black Mothers

Atkins

2016

Issues in Mental Health Nursing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This study further addresses potential gender differences in the discrimination-health model, adding to the limited intersectional research addressing the relationship between discrimination and health (Greer, 2011; Pascoe & Richman, 2009). Prior research implicated discrimination in depression (Borrell et al, 2006; Brown et al, 2000) and gender differences in depression favouring more prevalence among women (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The intersectional impact of race and gender can further illuminate the relationship between discrimination and health (Greer, 2011; Molina et al, 2013; Pascoe & Richman, 2009). There is a large body of literature exploring gender differences in perceived discrimination (Paradies, 2006) and health outcomes (Bertakis, Azari, Helms, Callahan, & Robbins, 2000; McGee, Liao, Cao, & Cooper, 1999) for racial and ethnic minority men and women.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Vigilance in the discrimination-stress model for Black Americans

Himmelstein

Young

Sanchez

et al. 2014

Psychology & Health

111

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective Daily events of discrimination are important factors in understanding health disparities. Vigilant coping, or protecting against anticipated discrimination by monitoring and modifying behaviour, is an understudied mechanism that may link discrimination and health outcomes. This study investigates how responding to everyday discrimination with anticipatory vigilance relates to the health of Black men and women. Methods Black adults (N = 221) from the Detroit area completed measures of discrimination, adverse life events, vigilance coping, stress, depressive symptoms and self-reported health. Results Vigilance coping strategies mediated the relationship between discrimination and stress. Multi-group path analysis revealed that stress in turn was associated with increased depression in men and women. Self-reported health consequences of stress differed between men and women. Conclusions Vigilance coping mediates the link between discrimination and stress, and stress has consequences for health outcomes resulting from discrimination. More research is needed to understand other underlying contributors to discrimination, stress and poor health outcomes as well as to create potential interventions to ameliorate health outcomes in the face of discrimination-related stress.

show abstract

“…Similarly, experiences of gendered racism among African American women were positively related to cognitive-emotionaldebriefing (i.e., avoiding thinking about the stressful event) and ritual (i.e., honoring gods and ancestors through rituals and celebrating events) coping (Thomas et al, 2008). Finally, some studies suggest that certain coping efforts used to deal with race-related stress that may be defined as ''positive'' or even culturally relevant, such as ritual-centered strategies, actually serve to increase psychological distress for African American women (Greer, 2011). In terms of mediation, Szymanski and Obiri found that negative religious coping (but not positive religious coping) partially mediated the link between racist events and African American person's psychological distress.…”

Section: Internalization As a Coping Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Link Between Multiple Oppressions and Depression Among African American Women

Carr

Szymanski

Taha

et al. 2013

Psychology of Women Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of our study was to examine the multiple oppression experiences of sexual objectification, racism, and gendered racism as predictors of depressive symptoms among a clinical sample of low-income African American women. In addition, we examined coping with oppression via internalization (i.e., the tendency to attribute responsibility or the cause of an oppressive event to oneself) as a mediator between these three intersecting forms of oppression and depressive symptoms. Participants included 144 African American women who sought some type of mental health treatment at a U.S. southeastern, public, urban, university-affiliated hospital that attends to a primarily indigent and underserved population. The results of our mediational analysis using bootstrapping provided support for a theorized model in which coping with oppressive events via internalization mediated the links between sexual objectification and depression and between racist events and depression but not between gendered racism and depression. In addition, a unique and direct effect of racist events on depression was found. Finally, the four variables in the model accounted for 42% of variance in depression scores. The study includes implications for future research and clinical work such as exploration of other mediators and the importance of comprehensive intake assessments and multicultural/feminist coping interventions.

show abstract

Coping Strategies as Moderators of the Relation Between Individual Race-Related Stress and Mental Health Symptoms for African American Women

Cited by 55 publications

References 40 publications

Coping with Depression in Single Black Mothers

Coping with Depression in Single Black Mothers

Vigilance in the discrimination-stress model for Black Americans

Understanding the Link Between Multiple Oppressions and Depression Among African American Women

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About