Abstract:

The aim is to explore the stress coping strategies and their impact on the senior -form students’ sense of coherence in gymnasium forms, during covid-19 pandemic.

The following hypoteses were tested in the course of research:
1. It is likely than senior-form students generally refer to stress coping strategies and make use of problem soving, seeking social support, avoidance strategies, but less emotional discharge.
2. It is likely than sense of coherence are different between students forms and gender groups.
3. There exists a certain relationship between stress coping strategies and students’ sense of coherence.

The sample of the reseach included 155 students in gymnasium forms III and IV in Molėtai,Lithuania.
Two types of metodology were used in the present research.
1. The Stress Coping Questionnaire (Grakauskas, Valickas, 2006) was used to identify the stress coping situation.
2. Life Orientation Questionnaire (A. Antonovsky, 1987) was meant to study the sense of coherence.

The findings of the research provided the data that proved the first hypothesis: senior gymnasium form students generally refer to the strategies of problem solving, seeking social support, and avoidance strategies, with strategies for emotional discharge remaining among the less frequently used strategies. The second hypothesis was confirmed only partly. In comparing the parametre of manageability of the sense of coherence between the two forms in focus, it was found that students of form III gave higher evaluation for statement 10: “Many people – even those with a strong character – sometimes feel like sad sacks ( losers) in certain stiuations. How often have you felt this was?“, (t(155) =3,287, p=0,001); male respondents displayed a better sense of coherence according to the parametres of comprehensibility, t(155) =-2924, p=0,009), and manageability, t(155)=-2,199, p=0,003) and this difference was statistically significant. The third hypothesis was confirmed only partly, it was established that a certain relationship does exist between stress coping strategies and the sense of coherence, however, the relationship is negative. The correlative analysis of the findings made it possible to establish that there exist one negative statistically significant relationships: between the comprehensibility of the sense of coherence and avoidance of stress coping strategies, (r -0,094, p=0,035).

Keywords:

Stress coping strategies, sense of coherence.