Riegos deficitarios

Adding to the current scope of research, the current study also predicted that the

relationship between coping and suicidality would be significantly impacted by culture, therefore the past findings conducted in Western countries may not be replicated in the student population in HK. In light of the limited research investigating prevalence of suicide in a student population, the current finding indicates that 18.4% of the HK students reported recurrent suicidality. The reported figure is higher than the figure reported in HK previously (10.8% of HK students aged 15-24 reported having suicide ideation over a 12-month period; Yip et al., 2004). It also supports the claims that the prevalence of suicidality within a university student population in HK is especially alarming compared to the general prevalence of suicidality in HK reported in Table 2.1 (12.6% in 2015 and 13.8% in 2010). However, the result is consistent with those reported in China that 19.3% of Chinese University students reported recurrent suicide ideation (Zhao et al., 2012), and 16.39% out of 5972 university students reported the presence of suicide ideation (Tang & Qin, 2015).

Based on the suicide statistics across different countries illustrated in Table 2.1 (World Health Organization, 2015, the University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention 2010 to 2014), the prevalence of suicide in HK is higher than the UK across 4-year comparisons (2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015). Opposite to the trend from the WHO statistics, the current study revealed lower levels of suicidality in HK

(18.4%) relative to the UK participants (25%). Whilst higher rates of suicide were reported in the UK sample compared to past research there was no difference in SBQ-R scores between the HK and the UK groups.

For the cross-cultural investigation of coping strategies in HK and the UK participants, results showed that HK participants reported using all 15 types of coping strategies more extensively than the UK participants. This is revealed by the higher scoring on COPE inventory for each of the 15 subscales, and this may in part explain the relatively lower levels of suicidality reported by HK relative to the UK participants. Specifically, HK participants used significantly more denial, humour, behavioural disengagement, religious coping, and suppression compared with the UK participants. Among these five strategies, four of them are emotion-focused or avoidance-focused coping. This suggests that Chinese participants tend to use more emotion-focused or avoidance-focused coping than their Western counterparts, but there are no significant differences in the use of problem-focused coping strategies (except for suppression which has been consistently documented as a form of maladaptive form of coping).

In support of the prior studies, the results have found that emotion-focused and avoidance coping are more common in Asian (e.g. Selmer, 2011) compared to Western cultures (e.g. Oláh, 1995). Focusing on emotions and avoiding the problem may be regarded as maladaptive coping in Western cultures that emphasize personal responsibility and egalitarianism (a trend of thought that favors equality for every individual). However, for Chinese culture that places less emphasis on taking personal responsibility, these coping methods may be perceived as more legitimate and

coping may alleviate distress temporarily without violating norms, which is crucial in Chinese culture (Matsumoto, Yoo, & Nakagawa 200). In support of this, Park, Armeli, and Tennen (2004) found that perception of low controllability, which is one of the characteristics of a collective culture, was found to be associated with using emotion- focused coping and avoidance (Menon, Morris, Chiu, & Hong, 1999).

In a related study, Lam and Zane (2004) examined how Asian and American students cope differently with interpersonal stressors in university via measures of primary and secondary control coping. Both forms of coping are regarded as engagement coping that directly manages a stressor, in particular primary control coping is similar to problem-focused coping as it aims to alter the stressors via active coping (Gloria,

Castellanos, & Orozco, 2005). Conversely, secondary control shares some common characteristics with emotion-focused coping as it focuses on adapting one’s mindset to be more equipped to handle a stressful situation (Rothbaum et al., 1982). An example of this would be the use of acceptance coping. When the use of these coping strategies was compared between Asian and American students, Asians were oriented toward the use of acceptance coping but with relatively less use of active coping. The current study

supports this finding whereby HK students also reported greater use of acceptance coping when compared to the UK students. In sum, Asian cultures may prefer to cope with interpersonal stressors by changing themselves to adjust to others. This is evident in the increased use of acceptance and denial strategies in HK participants.

The COPE inventory used in the present study serves as a good starting point to explore how different coping strategies correlate with executive functions and suicide behaviour. From the results, it is evident that whilst some coping strategies are highly

related to both executive functions and suicidality, others are not significantly linked to them. Therefore, it may be worth exploring other coping measures that are more focused around the theme of this research that is, exploring factors that may relate to suicide, specifically cognitive, neurological, and coping strategies. While the present findings provide insight about the association between coping, executive functions, and

suicidality, one constraint of this study is that it is solely based on self-report measures. Whilst the use of self-report measures (BRIEF-A and COPE) provides a useful indication about the extent of how each executive functions and coping strategy relates to

suicidality, it is uncertain how individuals will behave under certain emotional contexts. Therefore, other measures of executive functions could be implemented to better inform the process of emotion-cognitive interactions. Future investigations aimed at a more comprehensive assessment of executive functions might further substantiate the current findings.