Adolescent Life Events, Stress, and Coping: A Comparison of Communities and Genders

According to family stress theory, adolescent adaptation is partially determined by the life events experienced by adolescents and the coping strategies used by adolescents to deal with these potential stressors (McCubbin & McCubbin, 1989). Much of the stress and coping literature has focused on the relationship between an accumulation or "pile-up" of life event stressors in combination with the coping strategies in relation to various indicators) of adaptation (Dumont & Provost, 1999; McCubbin & Patterson, 1983). Additionally, much research has looked at differences between boys and girls (e.g., Feldman, Fisher, Ransom, & Dimicdeli, 1995). However, the research has not fully examined differences in life events and coping strategies of adolescents from different communities. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study was to examine differences in adolescent perceptions of life events, the level of stress due to the life events, and coping strategies from high schools in three rural communities in a south central state. In addition, differences between genders were examined. Adolescent Life Events and Coping Strategies A life event is defined as any event occurring to an individual or family that has the potential of producing stress. Life events that occur to any members in the family have potential implications for other members of the family system (e.g., parent changes jobs, adolescent gets pregnant, etc.). Hence, it is important not only to consider the specific life events occurring to the individual, but just as importantly, to consider those potentially stressful events occurring to other family members. Much of the previous research has focused on the impact of a single life event (e.g., divorce, parental conflict, pregnancy, etc.) on adaptation. However, other researchers (e.g., McCubbin & McCubbin,1989) have contended that stressors rarely occur in isolation. Instead, individuals and families often encounter a pileup or accumulation of life events that place additional demands upon the system. Many researchers and theorists studying adolescent life events have operated under the belief that all life events are stressful to some extent (McCubbin & Patterson, 1983; Mullis, Youngs, Mullis, & Rathge, 1993). Therefore, they have added the number of life events that occurred in a particular time period (e.g., last 12 months) to a particular adolescent to gain a global indicator of stress. The other philosophy is that stress varies according to an adolescent's perception of the life events. Hence, some researchers have asked adolescents to report their level of stress due to various life events, then they compute an overall stress level from these scores. Yet, others have emphasized the importance of considering both the frequency and intensity when assessing an adolescent's perception of a life event (Mullis et al., 1993). Not surprisingly, researchers have found support for a relationship between self-reported stressful life events (occurrence and level of stress) and adolescent adaptation such as psychological problems, behavioral problems, and physical well-being (see Compas, 1987, for a review). The researchers in the current study believe that examining both the frequency of occurrence as well as the perceived level of stress due to life events can provide useful information to school counselors, family practitioners, and researchers. Although examining the accumulation of life events in relation to adolescent outcomes is theoretically appealing and provides excellent insight into the etiology of various indicators of adolescent well-being, a global pile-up score may not be the most useful approach to school counselors. They may be more interested in determining which type of life events are occurring to the students in their school as well as which events are perceived as being stressful. Knowing this information would allow school counselors to devise appropriate prevention and intervention programs targeting the life events currently being experienced by the students in their schools. …