Perbedaan Coping Stress Penderita Kanker Ditinjau dari Jenis Kelamin di RSUP H. Adam Malik Medan

Abstract

Stress coping is an individual attempt to reduce, tolerate, or deal with stress from any source that is perceived to cause a burden. This research was conducted to observe the different stress coping between male and female cancer patients in RSUP H. Adam Malik, Medan. The underlying assumption was that females would score higher on stress coping in comparison to males, which implied that females cope better than males. The study participants are stage 3 and 4 cancer patients who undergo inpatient care facilities in RSUP H. Adam Malik Medan. This research was constructed by using Guttman’s scaling method which consists of two coping stress strategies, problem focused coping and emotion focused coping. Data analysis was performed with one way ANOVA with F=12.087 and 0.002 < 0.05 as a significant coefficient. Results showed that there is a difference between the stress coping of male and female cancer patients, where the male group scored in the lower category, because the hypothetical mean (30) was bigger than the empirical mean (28,7333), and the gap was less than the SD value (10,738). On the other hand, the stress coping on female cancer patients were found to be in the high level category because the hypothetical mean (30) was smaller than the empirical mean (57,333) whereas the gap exceeded the SD value (8,208). This suggest that the observed phenomenon fits the data from the research, supporting the notion that female cancer patients have higher stress coping. The hypothesis that there is a difference on the stress coping between male and female cancer patients, under the assumption that females cope better than males, was accepted.