The Association of Sense of Coherence and Coping Profile with Stress among Research Park City Workers in Japan

Via a large scale cross-sectional study among Japanese white color workers, the authors aimed to elucidate: (1) the distributions of Sense of Coherence (SOC), which reflect stress cop- ing abilities, (2) the distributions of the Brief Scale for Coping Profile (BSCP) which reflect cop- ing profiles for stressors; (3) and the association between SOC and BSCP. Anonymous self- administered questionnaires were sent to 20,742 employees at educational and research institu- tions in Tsukuba Research Park City. A total of 12,009 (57.9%) workers completed and returned the questionnaire; 10,317 workers without missing data were analyzed. SOC scale scores and BSCP subscale scores differed by gender, age, and other demographic features. Among the BSCP subscales, workers whose SOC scale scores were higher tended to adopt a problem-focused cop- ing profile, whereas workers whose SOC scale scores were lower adopted an emotion-focused coping profile. The coping profile that workers adopted depended on their background and demographic characteristics. Stronger SOC allowed one to adopt a problem-focused coping pro- file that allows for better coping with work-related stressors.