The relationship between beliefs about depression and coping strategies: Gender differences

Objective. Leventhal's common‐sense model of illness representation provides a conceptual framework for exploring the relationship between beliefs about depressive illness and use of coping strategies. We explored this relationship among depressed patients both across genders and in terms of gender differences. Design. Depressed primary care patients prescribed antidepressants provided self‐report measures of beliefs about depression, emotional reaction to depression, beliefs about medications and coping strategies used. Baseline data from a longitudinal study is presented. Method. Primary data analyses were conducted using canonical correlation analysis, a multivariate statistical method akin to principal component and regression analyses. It allows for parsimonious description of the association between two multivariate sets of variables (in this case, beliefs about depression and coping strategies) by identifying pairs of linear combinations that account for the majority of the between association from the two sets of variables. Results. The sample consisted of 189 depressed primary care patients (70.4% female). Results indicated that emotional reaction to depression is a major factor in determining coping strategies. Greater emotional reaction to depression was associated with maladaptive coping for men and women, while women showed additional relationships between greater perceived control over depression and more adaptive coping techniques as well as between perception of consequences of depression and problem solving. Conclusions. The present research provides preliminary evidence that beliefs about depression are related to coping styles. Further, men and women may differ in the way in which their perceptions about depression influence coping styles adopted.