COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is a chronic illness associated with psychological distress. Self-esteem and the associated comorbidities, like depression and anxiety, can influence its evolution.

To analyze how predominant coping styles associated with different levels of self-esteem and mental status in patients with COPD.

To demonstrate that different types of coping-styles have an impact on self-esteem, depression and anxiety.

To a lot consisting of 28 subjects with COPD, was applied the COPE scale to assess the style of coping, to rate anxiety and depression The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and for self-esteem the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. According to their higher coping sub-scale score, they were classified to one dominant coping type as follows: patients with problem-focused coping type (n = 9), emotion-focused coping (n = 10), social support-focused coping (n = 6), respectively avoiding coping type (n = 3).

Patients with dominant problem-focused coping had the most elevated self-esteem compared to patients with social-focused coping (22.0 vs. 16.2; P = 0.039), the depression score was the highest in patients with dominant avoidance-type coping and the lowest in patients with dominant problem-focused coping (11.0 vs. 5.6; P = 0.042) respectively anxiety, was the highest in patients with dominant social-focused coping and the lowest in patients with dominant emotion-focused coping (11.6 vs. 5.0; P = 0.006).

In patients with COPD, problem-focused and emotion-focused copings are adaptive, while avoidance and emotion-focused copings are maladaptive on self-esteem and mental status. Such as, the coping represents a psychological dimension with an impact on the evolution of the disease, and the patients with COPD should be assessed and addressed multidisciplinary.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.