Extent and orientation of coping in chemical intolerance

Abstract

Chemical intolerance is a long-standing illness with minimal guidelines regarding treatment. Hence, individual attempts to cope with the illness gain importance in dealing with its consequences. This study used data from 164 persons with self-reported chemical intolerance to understand the nature of coping with the illness. Coping was studied along two dimensions, the extent and predominant orientation of coping. The association of these coping dimensions with mental health variables of stress, depression, anxiety, burnout, and non-restorative sleep was examined as well. Results revealed that the persons with chemical intolerance used a moderate amount of coping strategies which were slightly more emotion-focused than problem-focused in orientation. Users of both problem-focused and emotion-focused orientations report scores in the normal range on all mental health indices. However, significantly higher level of anxiety was found to be associated with predominantly emotion-focused coping, whereas coping orientation did not differ with respect to the four other mental health indices. The above findings are discussed in relation to existing literature on coping with long-term illness.