Coping strategies and health symptoms among women and men in a downsizing organisation

This study examined how women and men cope with stress during a period of organisational change and how the coping strategies are related to health. Questionnaire responses were obtained from 98 female and male administrators of health care service working in a Swedish governmental County Council during a period of downsizing. In line with earlier studies the results showed women to be more likely than men to endorse the emotion-focused strategies Seeking Social Support and Focus on and Venting of Emotions. Contrary to earlier studies the men did not report using problem-focused strategies more frequently than the women. Additionally, the results from the regression analysis indicated that the reported use of problem-focused strategies did not contribute significantly to the explained variance in health. Instead, the emotion-focused strategy Denial explained a significant proportion of variance in the health problems. No gender differences in reported health problems were found.