An Investigation into the Relation of Coping Skills with Mental Health and Quality of Life in Family Members of Nurses During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Objectives: During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, health care workers, including nurses and their family members, experienced various psychological problems. Coping skills may help them deal with the current challenge and maintain their mental health and improve their quality of life. Therefore, this study investigated the relation of coping skills with mental health and quality of life of the nurses’ family members during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on the family members of the nurses working at Hajar Hospital of Shahrekord dedicated to admission and hospitalization of COVID-19 infected patients using a census sampling method in 2020. Participation in this study was voluntary and finally 220 persons were included in this study. To prevent the spread of COVID-19 through respiratory droplets or contact, a weblog was created using blogging software that contained questionnaires for collecting data on demographic information, mental health (PHQ-9), coping skills (coping responses inventory [CRI], Billings & Moos), and quality of life (SF-36). The collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tests in SPSS software version 22 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY). Results: Of the 220 participants in this study, 101 participants were male and 119 were female. The mean age of the subjects was 35.78 years, and 56.4% of them had an academic education level. The Pearson correlation analysis showed a significant relationship between coping skills and mental health, quality-of-life items, total quality-of-life score, and demographic variables of participants (except education) (P < 0.05). This was a direct relationship in such a way that as the score of coping skills increases, so does the score of mental health and quality of life. Based on the results of regression analysis, the predictive power of mental health, coping skills, and education level was obtained to be 0.634. The coping skill variable was the strongest predictor (ß = 0.467), and after that, the mental health variable (ß = 0.421) had the highest predictive power. Conclusion: The obtained results showed that coping skill is the association between psychological health and quality of life such that the coping skill has a significant direct effect on psychological health and quality of life. The results also showed that, at the time of crisis, further attention should be paid to coping skills to develop and improve the quality of life and psychological health.

Impact of individual factors and personality trait on psychological problems of family members living with staff of a COVID‐19 frontline hospital: A cross‐sectional self‐administered anonymous questionnaire survey

“…There is inconsistency between the studies regarding the age or relationship with the hospital staff, perhaps due to the difference in the distribution of subject demographics or survey period from the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, there was a relatively small number of samples in our study compared with previous studies, 12,13 potentially leading to beta error regarding association between psychological problems and risk factors.…”

“…A previous study conducted a questionnaire survey of families of COVID‐19 frontline nurses. Mild, moderate, or severe depression in their subjects were reported as 22.6%, 71.4%, and 1.8%, respectively 13 . Another study on depression and anxiety of family members of hospital staff involved in frontline care of patients with COVID‐19 reported that 29.4% of the subjects had depression and that 33.7% of the subjects had anxiety 12 .…”

“…Risk factors for anxiety or depression were female sex, being parents or next of kin of hospital staff, and contact with positive or suspected COVID‐19 patients within their family (hospital staff) 12 . A later survey of families of COVID‐19 frontline nurses showed that female sex and older age were risk factors of mental health problems 13 . Female sex was a risk factor for psychological problems in both two previous studies, whereas the current study showed no significant association between female sex and psychological problems.…”

“…Reported risk factors of depression were being parents or next of kin of hospital staff members, and long working hours of hospital staff members 12 . In another study, subjects comprised 208 family members of nurses on the frontline of COVID‐19 care, and 71.4% of participants expressed moderate depressive symptoms 13 . Risk factors were female sex, high age, and being married 13 .…”

“…Mental health is influenced not only by external factors, but also by individual personality traits 15,16 . Previous studies on mental health of family members of hospital staff on the frontline of caring for patients with COVID‐19 examined relationships between psychological problems and demographic characteristics, such as age, sex, and education or working status 12,13 . To our knowledge, however, no studies have examined personality traits and the mental health of family members of hospital staff working on the frontline of COVID‐19 care.…”