Adolescents' perception of coping strategies within families

Abstract

The research presented in this paper studies adolescents' perception of coping strategies within families in Serbia. As a basis for understanding the way in which a family faces problems, we have taken the ABC-X model of family stress. The evaluation of family coping strategies was performed by 421 adolescents aged 16-17. In addition to the Questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics of respondents and their families, in this research we have used the revised version of the Family Crisis Oriented Personal Evaluation Scales (F-COPES/r) which operationalized internal and external coping strategies. The results obtained have shown that active internal and external coping strategies are not sufficiently present in families, especially when it comes to the strategy of using institutional support. In addition, the existence of statistically significant differences was determined in the evaluation of coping strategies having in mind the majority of measured socio-demographic characteristics. Based on the obtained findings, we have drawn the conclusion that potentially insufficient functional coping strategies are present in families, so the necessity of strengthening the family in order to face problems more efficiently is emphasized.