A two-phase study was designed to explore occupational differences in coping and the relationship between various types of coping and stress symptoms. The first phase of the study compared members of two occupations (viz., practical nurses and registered nurses) with regard to their use of social support, cognitive coping, recreation, and physical care. Based on Holland's occupational typology, hypotheses were formulated predicting a profile on the Personal Resources Questionnaire for each occupational group as well as differences between the groups' profiles. Results of a two between (occupation, age), one within (coping type) repeated measures analysis of variance (n = 98) did not support the hypotheses. However, the interaction between age and type of coping did reach significance (F = 3.81, p = .01).

The second phase of the study explored the relationship of cognitive and somatic coping with cognitive and somatic stress symptoms. Following Schwartz's psychobiological model of stress symptoms and coping, it was hypothesized that the relationship between coping and symptoms would be stronger within the cognitive and somatic systems than across them. Hotelling's t-tests (N = 150) indicated that cognitive coping was more strongly related to cognitive than to somatic symptoms (t = 2.15, p < .05). However, physical care was equally related to both cognitive and somatic symptoms (t = 0.31). Some evidence was found, through Pearson correlations, that the four symptom domains measured by the Cognitive somatic Stress Scale (viz., affective, thought, neuromuscular, autonomic) are differentially affected by the four types of coping. In general, affective and thought-related symptoms were affected more than neuromuscular and autonomic.