AN EXPLORATION OF THE PROCESS OF COPING AS EXPERIENCED BY NURSES WHO SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR.
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 213
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Women's Studies.
Description: The purpose of conducting this study was to explore theoretical dimensions of the process of coping as experienced by women who were placed in extreme psychological and physical circumstances. Nurses' memories of stressful events during their tour of duty in the Vietnam War provided the context for examination of the coping process. Stress was viewed from the perspective of each nurse and was conceptualized as the stimulus that provoked the process. Coping was defined as a process through which a person consciously managed stressful events and the emotions those events generated.

Participants in the study (N = 12) were chosen by a snowball sampling technique. The sample was female; one black nurse was included. All of the participants were military registered nurses who had served at least one tour in Vietnam at which time their median age was 24 years.

Data were collected from face to face interviews, questionnaires, and personal mementos voluntarily shared by the informants. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed by a constant intra-and-inter-individual comparison of factors influencing perceptions of stress, appraisals of risk, and coping behavior. Sixty-four stressful events described by the nurses clustered into eight categories: arrival in Vietnam, hostile action, mass casualty situations, caring for specific GI's, loss of significant others, stressful relationships and caring for both Vietnamese children and POW's. Fifteen categories of perceptions of stress were identified and clustered into three classifications: degree of vulnerability (sense of self), degree of responsibility (concern for others), and degree of resolvability (properties of the situation).

Each event precipitated an appraisal of risk to personal well-being. Perceptions and appraisals of risk in concert with individual values, beliefs, and commitments influenced the choice of coping strategies. Eleven categories of coping responses clustered into two different coping patterns. Evidence derived from the data analysis indicated that each of the coping patterns and the scores from Norbeck's Life Events Questionnaire (pre-Vietnam events) were modestly related. One coping pattern included the use of action coping responses, those used to manage the situation and/or reduce emotional tension. The other pattern included avoidance coping responses, those used to disengage from the event or to avoid emotional pain. Nurses whose predominant coping pattern included action behavior experienced an easier transitional period immediately following Vietnam than nurses who used predominantly avoidance coping behavior.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-09, Section: B, page: 4279.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1990.

School code: 0227.