Interrelation between defensive mechanisms and coping strategies in psychiatry trainees in Romania: a multicenter study

Abstract

Background The challenges faced by professionals when working in the field of psychiatry require the development of adequate defensive and coping mechanisms. This study aimed to explore both coping strategies and defense mechanisms and their relationship in psychiatry trainees in Romania. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine and evaluate both defensive and coping mechanisms of Romanian psychiatry trainees. Defensive Style Questionnaire-60 and COPE scale were applied to psychiatry trainees from five training centers in Romania. By applying structural equation modeling, models that presumed the existence of relationships between coping strategies and defensive mechanisms were analyzed. Results Superior defense mechanisms and task-oriented coping strategies were the commonly used approaches by psychiatry trainees. Furthermore, significantly consistent correlations (ranging from 0.2 to 0.5) between adaptive defense mechanisms and coping strategies focused on the problem or emotion were shown. Similarly, avoidant coping strategies correlated with non-adaptive defense mechanisms (correlations between 0.3 and 0.5). Our model presented good fit indices (X2(34) = 64.324, p < 0.001; GFI = 0.93; root mean square error = 0.08). Moreover, the results indicated a weak association between the two types of adaptive processes (r = 0.07, p < 0.001). Conclusion Psychiatry trainees present a profile based on two independent groups of adaptation processes, namely, adaptive defenses and problem-oriented coping scales and non-adaptive defenses and avoidant coping scales.

Retorno ao trabalho após licença-maternidade: vivência de mulheres trabalhadoras

“…As falas evidenciam que grande parte da organização pensada pelas famílias para a volta ao trabalho foi substituída pela incerteza e medo da Covid-19: Para a mulher, a conciliação entre o RT e a maternidade antes do contexto pandêmico já exigia o uso de estratégias de enfrentamento como levar o filho ao trabalho, separar os papéis exercidos e até mesmo interpretar o sofrimento como algo inerente à maternidade (Andrade et al, 2020). Estratégias adotadas de forma consciente (Panfil et al, 2020), como alternativas para minimizar o sofrimento e a culpa pela separação precoce do filho (Andrade et al, 2020). Com a pandemia, retornar ao trabalho exercendo sua função sem sair de casa e somadas às demandas da maternidade, ainda em aprendizagem, tornaram o processo mais doloroso e a percepção de qualidade de vida menor (Macêdo, 2020).…”

Структура Захисно-Совладаючої Поведінки Молоді

“…If to rely upon the views according to which psychological defense mechanisms are the basis of the particular coping options (Nikolska, 2011) and personal factors of coping behavior specifying perception of the objective preconditions of its formation (Nikonenko, 2017) and being a whole regulatory system with coping strategies (Petrova, 2014;Maricutoiu, Crasovan, 2016;Panfil1, 2020), the most consistency in this system functioning is defined in the group of young people with high values of system reflection, average values of introspection and quasi-reflection with no diverse connections between copings and psychological defense mechanisms. The number of positive and negative connections between copings and defense mechanisms of the young people with average values of system reflection, low values of introspection and quasi-reflection practically corresponds to the previously investigated group, but the given group, in contrast to the previous one, has the diverse connections between copings and defense mechanisms.…”

“…In the psychological investigations of the latest decades the tendency to unification of psychological defense and stress coping mechanisms as two basic forms or aspects of a human's adaptive processes, as the processes in the controlling behavior structure, as the components of the whole regulatory system has been formed (Petrova, 2014;Maricutoiu, Crasovan, 2016;Panfil1, 2020). For instance, A.G. Petrova (2014) represents defense mechanisms and coping behavior as the whole regulatory system functioning in the situation of the external or internal conflict and including the subsystems of personality stabilization and coping.…”