Examination of coping skills for stress and anxiety levels of smokers and non-smokers

This study's aim is to reveal the relationship between coping skills for stress and anxiety levels of smokers and non-smokers. Besides, the effects of variables such as individuals' sex, age, marital status, education level and smoking habit on coping skills for stress and anxiety levels are examined. Randomly selected 225 people from smokers and non-smokers in Istanbul had participated to the research. Also, according to identify socio-demographic characteristics of the participants, Personal Information Form, and to evaluate variables, Coping Skills for Stress and Beck Anxiety scales are applied by researcher. Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis H and Spearman Correlation Tests are used in the analysis of data. When the socio-demographic characteristics analyzed, it is found out that non-smokers have higher scores for optimist attitude and social support seeking than smokers, male smokers have higher scores for self-confident attitude than female smokers, and smokers who have middle or low income level have higher anxiety scores than smokers who have high income level. There was no meaningful results for socio-demographic features that take a part in the research, such as individuals' age, marital status or occupation. In addition, it is seen that as smoking duration increase for smokers, their social support seeking attitude levels decrease; and as smoking frequency increase for smokers per day, their desperate attitude levels increase. In the discussion section, at the end of the research, suggestions for researchers, psychological consultants working on this field had been proposed on research findings. Keywords: Stress, Coping Skills for Stress, Anxiety