Objective: To examine whether (a) Living in the Face of Trauma (LIFT), a group intervention to address coping with HIV and childhood sexual abuse (CSA), significantly reduced traumatic stress over a 1-year follow-up period more than an attention-matched support group comparison intervention; and (b) reductions in avoidant coping over time mediated…

Objective: The diagnosis and treatment of cancer are highly stressful experiences that can profoundly affect emotional and physical well-being. Hundreds of longitudinal investigations that identify risk and protective factors for psychological and physical adjustment in adults living with cancer and numerous randomized controlled psychosocial…

Objective: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious health concern, but little is known about prevalence of IPV in the armed forces, as military members cope with the pressures of long-standing operations. Furthermore, previous prevalence studies have been plagued by definitional issues; most studies have focused on acts of aggression without…

Objective: We examined the direct and indirect impact of minority stress on mental health and substance use among sexual minority women. Method: A combination of snowball and targeted sampling strategies was used to recruit lesbian and bisexual women (N = 1,381) for a cross-sectional, online survey. Participants (M age = 33.54 years; 74% White)…

Individuals react in a variety of ways when experiencing environmental challenges exceeding their capacity to cope adaptively. Some researchers have suggested that Asian populations tend to react to excessive stress with somatic symptoms, whereas Western populations tend to respond more with affective or depressive symptoms. Other researchers,…

Objective: The primary goal of this study was to test a culturally specific model of binge eating in African American female trauma survivors, investigating potential mechanisms through which trauma exposure and distress were related to binge eating symptomatology. Method: Participants were 179 African American female trauma survivors who…

Parents of 30 children with phenylketonuria, classified as being in good or poor dietary control, engaged in verbal and written problem-solving situations under conditions of both high and low time-pressure induced stress. Overall, compliant parents gave higher quality verbal and written problem-solving solutions than noncompliant parents.…

The authors conducted a large-scale study of terrorism in Israel via telephone surveys in September 2003 with 905 adult Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCIs). Structural equation path modeling indicated that exposure to terrorism was significantly related to greater loss and gain of psychosocial resources and to greater posttraumatic…

Conducted baseline assessments of 104 cocaine patients during treatment. After treatment, assessed subjects weekly for 12 weeks, then 6 months from study start. Goal of absolute abstinence, greater expected success in quitting, and positive moods predicted lower risk of lapse in first 12 weeks. Use of more coping strategies predicted abstinence…

Compared repatriated World War II prisoners of war with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and noncombat veterans on psychological functioning, appraisal, and coping. Subjects with PTSD reported poorer psychological functioning; significantly less control over war memories; and more frequent use of self-isolation, wishful thinking,…

Explored the posttreatment phase of unipolar depression in a 12-month follow-up of 424 depressed persons who received treatment and a comparable follow-up of demographically matched, nondepressed controls. Patients whose symptoms remitted reported improvement in other aspects of their adjustment as well as in personal resources such as self-esteem…

Describes investigation utilizing sickle cell disease subjects from a stress and coping project. Found little stability in classification of individuals' adjustment, low congruence in behavior problem patterns and diagnoses, and less stability in adjustment by child report than mother report. Suggests children's coping strategies are intervention…

Examined 111 women's retrospective reports of childhood sexual abuse. Explored domains of circumstances of abuse, mediators, and outcomes (negative effects of abuse). Found long-term negative outcomes of abuse directly affected by close relationship to perpetrator and severity of abuse from circumstance of abuse domain, and immediate negative…

Healthy Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) seropositive undergraduates (n=57) completed personality inventory, provided blood samples, and were randomly assigned to write/talk about stressful events, or to write about trivial events. Those assigned to verbal/stressful condition had significantly lower EBV antibody titers (suggesting better cellular immune…

Special series of nine articles by Kenneth Heller; Peggy Thoits; Scott Monroe et al.; Toni Antonucci and Barbara Israel; Darrin Lehman et al.; Robin Mermelstein et al.; James Coyne and Anita DeLongis; Morton Lieberman; and Kenneth Heller et al. (Author/ABB)