Behavioral, cognitive, and emotional coping strategies of women with endometriosis: a critical narrative review

Cristina Zarbo, Agostino Brugnera, Luigi Frigerio, Chiara Malandrino, Massimo Rabboni, Emi Bondi, Angelo Compare
Archives of women's mental health · 2017 · vol. 21(1) , pp. 1–13 · doi:10.1007/s00737-017-0779-9 · PMID:28932912 · W2756013734
review OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 61 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06+body, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This review synthesized nine studies on women with endometriosis, finding pain is a major stressor, and adaptive/maladaptive coping strategies, emotional repression, and pain catastrophizing relate to pain and mental health outcomes.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-09 ⓘ

This PRISMA-guided critical narrative review examined quantitative and qualitative studies (9 papers) on how behavioral, cognitive, and emotional coping strategies, as well as related constructs (emotional intelligence and metacognition), relate to psychological and life functioning in women with endometriosis. The review found that pain is commonly treated as the major stressor; women reported using both adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies; and compared with healthy individuals, women with endometriosis or related chronic pain appear more likely to repress emotions, with emotional suppression, pain catastrophizing, and passive coping associated with higher self-reported pain, while problem- or emotion-focused positive coping and detached/rational styles were associated with better mental health. The authors note that only a few studies with mixed results and methodological flaws addressed coping strategies, and that no studies on metacognition or emotional intelligence were found. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it reviews coping strategies and their links to mental health and functioning in women with the condition.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Adaptation, Psychological Cognition Endometriosis Mental Health Stress, Psychological Adult Cross-Sectional Studies Endometriosis Female Humans Qualitative Research

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (59)

Cited by (50)

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License: CC0 · commercial use OK