Relationships between self‐efficacy, social support and stress coping strategies in Chinese primary and secondary school teachers

Abstract This study explored whether stress coping strategies could be predicted by general self‐efficacy and social support. Primary and secondary teachers (n = 530) completed measures of coping strategies, general self‐efficacy and social support. The results showed that teachers' general self‐efficacy and social support had direct and indirect predictive effects on different coping strategies, and they have more significant predictive effects on certain types of coping strategies. Teachers with higher general self‐efficacy and social support tended to adopt adaptive coping strategies or emotion‐oriented coping strategies. The study suggested that social support and self‐efficacy should be important factors to be considered when designing a prevention or intervention programme in the guidance of teachers' coping strategies and psychological counselling. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.