Arab Educational Information Network

The aim of this study was to identify stress coping styles of university students with hearing and visual impairments and its relationship to their self-esteem, and to identify the differences between their responses according to gender, type and severity the disability. The sample consisted of 169 undergraduate students; 74 were hearing impaired and 95 were visually impaired. A descriptive method was used. The stress coping styles and self-esteem scales, developed by the researcher, were applied. The coping styles scale covered three categories; performance, emotional, and avoidance, while the self-esteem scales consisted of self, family and society categories. The most distinguished finding is that avoidance was the most frequently used style to cope with stress by the participants. It was also found that there was a statistically significant positive correlation between stress coping styles and self-esteem in all scale categories, except the performance one where a negative correlation was found. In addition, the results showed a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of students with hearing and visual impairments on the performance category of the stress coping scale, in favor of students with visual impairments, and the category of avoidance in favor of female students. For self-esteem, the results showed a significant difference between the mean scores of each category and the total scores in favor of students with hearing impairment. (Published abstract)