Coping Strategies of the Adolescents Living in Childcare Homes

Abstract: About half of the mental health problems emerge during the adolescent period. The children in childcare homes are more vulnerable to threats posed by external factors having issues such as of homelessness, parental abuse, violence and death of the parents. Hence it is expected that these conditions can affect their emotional wellbeing. At the same time children and adolescents are highly resilient as well. Many of the mental health problems can be effectively prevented through the proper facilitation of healthy coping skills. This study aimed to assess and identify the coping strategies adopted by the adolescents living in childcare homes of Kathmandu Valley and to ascertain if there is any significant difference between boys and girls in coping strategies. The study followed the quantitative and cross-sectional design using 102 adolescents from six childcare homes of Kathmandu and Lalitpur districts. Brief Cope was used to measure the coping strategies of the participants. The adolescents were found to be using both problems focused coping strategies and emotion focused coping strategies more or less at the same time. Females were found to be using more problem focused coping significantly than male (p<0.05), while there was no gender difference in emotion focused coping (p>0.05).