Adolescent Girlʹs Coping With an STD: Not Enough Problem Solving and Too Much Self-Blame

Study Objective: Approximately three million teenagers are infected with an STD each year. The ways in which an adolescent girl copes with an STD may have implications for future risk and for psychological adjustment. The purpose of the current study was to compare whether coping with an STD was similar to coping with other stressors. Setting: Urban, hospital-based adolescent medicine clinic. Design and Participants: Sixty-seven girls with a mean age of 15.9 (sexual debut was 13.8) yr completed the KIDCOPE in response to both an STD acquisition and an interpersonal stressor within the previous 6 months. Results: Problem solving was used less often, and self-blame was used more often, in response to an STD acquisition. Frequency of use of self-blame was not correlated with perceived helpfulness. Conclusions: These findings suggest that clinicians need to help adolescent girls manage STD acquisition from the perspective of problem solving rather than self-blame.