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Coping with a Chronic Illness – Processes Underlying Perceived Stress and Coping Behavior in Adolescents with Atopic Eczema

Background: Aim of the study was a deeper understanding of the interactions between daily stressors, illness symptoms, and coping efforts of adolescents with atopic eczema. Patients and Methods: 25 adolescents kept a diary for a period of 3 months. They reported day by day every incident of severe itching of the skin, the preceding situation and their reaction. Cross-correlations between the emerging timeseries of severity of itching, number of stressful situations, and number of problem-orientated and emotion-orientated coping behaviors were conducted. Results: For the whole group of patients, itching was correlated with a higher number of stressful situations one and two days before and one day after itching. Itching was also correlated with problem-orientated coping efforts on the following days, and with emotion-orientated coping efforts on the days before. In turn, severity of itching and problem-orientated coping predicted stressful situations. Conclusions: A complex pattern of correlations between stressful situations, itching and different kinds of coping could be identified. The role of problem-orientated coping deserves more attention. Scratching was reported as the most prominent problemorientated coping action, but it leads to more stress on the long run. Adolescents with atopic eczema should be taught more effective coping behaviors, both problem- and emotion- orientated.