title: Coping flexibility and complicated grief: a comparison of American and Chinese samples.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The ability to process a death and the ability to remain optimistic and look beyond the loss are both thought to be effective means of coping with loss and other aversive events. Recently, these seemingly contrary dimensions have been integrated into the idea of coping flexibility.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study, we assessed the ability of married and bereaved individuals in the United States and Hong Kong to use both coping approaches as operationalized by the trauma-focused and forward-focused coping scales of a previously validated questionnaire. We also calculated a single flexibility score.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Bereaved participants reported greater trauma-focused coping ability than did married participants. However, bereaved participants meeting criteria for complicated grief (CG) reported less forward-focused coping than both asymptomatic bereaved and married participants. The CG group also showed less overall coping flexibility than the asymptomatic bereaved and married groups. Country was not a factor.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Findings suggest that deficits in coping flexibility are indicative of pathology in bereaved individuals, and that this relationship extends across cultures. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed.
authors: Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA. clb2110@columbia.edu
authors: Charles L
authors: CL
authors: Burton
authors: Oscar H
authors: OH
authors: Yan
authors: Ruth
authors: R
authors: Pat-Horenczyk
authors: Ide S F
authors: IS
authors: Chan
authors: Samuel
authors: S
authors: Ho
authors: George A
authors: GA
authors: Bonanno
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological / Q000145:classification; D000328:Adult; D001601:Bereavement; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003643:Death; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012917:Social Adjustment; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D017805:Widowhood / Q000523:psychology*