Date of Award

Summer 1979

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Nursing

Abstract

The coping behaviors of a post-operative seven-and-three-quarter year-old girl with lymphoma were grouped into categories of perceived threats and analyzed for predominant coping themes. The method of data collection was the process recording. In the eighteen process recordings collected during times of direct patient care and observations of the subject over a six week period, a total of two-hundred and thirty-four behaviors was found. Three categories of perceived threats were identified. These categories with the number of behaviors in each were: 1) Threats from Intrusions, one-hundred and forty-five; 2) Threat of Pain, fifty-nine; and 3) Threat to Body Image, thirty. The coping behaviors were categorized into four predominant coping themes. These coping themes and the number of behaviors in each were: 1) Cognitive Mastery, eighty-one; 2) Expression of Feelings, seventy-eight; 3) Control, sixty; and 4) Identification with the Aggressor, fifteen. All four coping themes were displayed in the category of threats from intrusions, where the highest number of behaviors was found in the coping themes of cognitive mastery and control. In the categories of threat of pain and threat to body image all the coping themes were displayed except identification with the aggressor. The highest number of behaviors in response to threat of pain was expression of feelings. In the category of threat to body image, the highest number of behaviors was cognitive mastery.

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