The amount of effort expended by older men in coping with stressful events has the greatest impact on their mortality risk over and above how stressful an event is -- or the coping strategy employed to deal with it, new U.S. research published Tuesday indicates.
Most coping strategies were weakly to moderately positively correlated, and adaptive coping strategies were employed more frequently than dysfunctional responses, such as avoidance or confrontation.
Of these, only social coping, reaching out to others, was significantly associated with mortality risk with a 15% higher risk of dying from all causes. However, the study caveats this finding, noting social coping included "other-directed action that may deplete emotional and physical resources instead of bolstering them."
