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Abstract
Individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia have to cope on a daily basis with the stress generated by their symptoms, but there are few studies accounting of these techniques in professional literature. Therefore, this study aimed at assessing and categorizing the types of coping strategies among the long term mentally ill patients, and assessing the association between clinical symptoms and overall coping ability, particularly the differential role of insight and positive and negative symptoms. A descriptive exploratory design was utilized in this study. The study was conducted in the Out-patient Clinic of EI-Abassia Mental Hospital. A sample of convenience of 150 chronic schizophrenic patients who were followed up in the previous mentioned setting were recruited. Five tools were used for data collection, socio-demographic/ medical data sheet, the scale for the assessment of positive symptoms, the scale for the assessment of negative symptoms, coping strategies scale, and unawareness of mental disorder in psychosis scale. Findings of this study indicated that, disease consciousness is negatively correlated with number of hospital admission and positive symptoms except hallucination and delusion. Coping strategies reported by patients are positively correlated with negative symptoms. Schizophrenic patients are not passive victims of their illness; they try to cope with psychotic experiences in individually different ways. Schizophrenic patients could be encouraged to learn new coping methods and refine old ones.