Stress among staff working in oncology: an attempt of classification of coping strategies

This study concerns the construction of a coping scale specifically for care-giving and non-care-giving personnel in oncology. We first held interviews with 168 persons with the 'aim of collecting, among other things, the behaviors utilised for confronting stressful professional situations. That step permitted us to construct a coping scale composed of 25 items which was administered to a sample of 1886 persons working in oncology in the Centers for the Struggle Against Cancer, (Centres de Lutte Contre le Cancer), in hospital services, or in private clinics. Factorial analyses led us to identify six factors: "making the break," "distancing oneself from work," "relativising," "distracting oneself," "seeing a psychologist;" and "verbalising one's problems." The validity criterion of our scale was tested by assessing the relationships between the scores on these six coping factors and the three dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and personal fulfillment). The content of these dimensions is discussed with regard to quantitative and qualitative studies already carried out in this area. Our results bring out the necessity of better identifying the processes by which members of oncology teams confront the stresses linked to their profession.