scholarly journals Coping during COVID-19: a mixed methods study of older cancer survivors

Author(s):  
Jacqueline Galica ◽  
Ziwei Liu ◽  
Danielle Kain ◽  
Sheila Merchant ◽  
Christopher Booth ◽  
...  

Abstract Purpose Older cancer survivors are among the most vulnerable to the negative effects of COVID-19 and may need specific survivorship supports that are unavailable/restricted during the pandemic. The objective of this study was to explore how older adults (≥ 60 years) who were recently (≤ 12 months) discharged from the care of their cancer team were coping during the pandemic. Methods We used a convergent mixed method design (QUAL+quan). Quantitative data were collected using the Brief-COPE questionnaire. Qualitative data were collected using telephone interviews to explore experiences and strategies for coping with cancer-related concerns. Results The mean sample age (n = 30) was 72.1 years (SD 5.8, range 63–83) of whom 57% identified as female. Participants’ Brief-COPE responses indicated that they commonly used acceptance (n = 29, 96.7%), self-distraction (n = 28, 93.3%), and taking action (n = 28, 93.3%) coping strategies. Through our descriptive thematic analysis, we identified three themes: (1) drawing on lived experiences, (2) redeploying coping strategies, and (3) complications of cancer survivorship in a pandemic. Participants’ coping strategies were rooted in experiences with cancer, other illnesses, life, and work. Using these strategies during the pandemic was not new—they were redeployed and repurposed—although using them during the pandemic was sometimes complicated. These data were converged to maximize interpretation of the findings. Conclusions Study findings may inform the development or enhancement of cancer and non-cancer resources to support coping, particularly using remote delivery methods within and beyond the pandemic. Clinicians can engage a strengths-based approach to support older cancer survivors as they draw from their experiences, which contain a repository of potential coping skills.

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peta Stapleton ◽  
Sarah Garby ◽  
Debbie Sabot

Teaching professionals report higher levels of work-related stress and symptoms of psychological health problems than the general population. This study examined psychological distress, coping styles and wellbeing in 166 Australian teachers (aged 22–65 years; M =  37.74 years, SD =  10.84 years). Participants completed an online survey comprising demographic items and four empirical measures (The Satisfaction with Life Scale, Subjective Happiness Scale, The Brief COPE Inventory and The Patient Health Questionnaire). Work, workload and finances were identified as leading sources of stress. Moreover, above-average clinical symptoms of anxiety, depression and physical concerns were reported, and 17% of respondents met criteria for probable alcohol dependence. Results suggested that maladaptive coping strategies employed by teachers may contribute to their risk of increased psychological distress, and decreased life satisfaction and happiness. These findings indicate the need for work-based programmes to enhance teachers’ coping strategies in an effort to reduce psychological distress and improve overall wellbeing in teaching professionals.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetiana Nechytailo ◽  
Halyna Fesun ◽  
Tetiana Kanivets ◽  
Alla Simak

The article is devoted to the psychological peculiarities of the manifestation of coping-resources of educators. The teaching profession belongs to the category of professions especially vulnerable to stress, since the teacher has to solve various professional tasks in the absence of time and information, constant open contact with people, which entails considerable emotional energy. The professional activity of a modern teacher requires constant and maximum mobilization of their personal resources. Maintaining or enhancing a person's stress resistance is associated with finding and using resources well enough to help the educator overcome the negative effects of stressful situations. The article reveals such characteristics of personality and social environment that facilitate or make possible adaptation to life stresses, promotes the development of a means of overcoming it, and increases stress resistance. These personal structures help a person cope with threatening circumstances and facilitate adaptation. The author analyzes the scientific and psychological approaches to understand personal resources, determinants of the choice of coping-strategies, and the influence of the characteristics of professional activity on the behavior of the individual. Questions about structure, functions, and types of coping behavior are raised. According to the majority of modern researchers, the generalized classification of the methods of mastering stressful circumstances is analyzed: coping aimed at evaluation; problem-oriented coping; coping aimed at emotions. Also presented were the most up-to-date and most modern models of coping resources, which can be viewed from different angles to look at the choice of coping-resources by the personality of the teacher, taking into account the conditions of his professional activity. The organization and methods of conducted research of the features of manifestation of coping-resources in teachers are described. The presented quantitative and qualitative results are disclosed according to the stages of the study. In particular, the analysis of teacher’s coping-strategies depending on the level of emotional burnout, ways of overcoming difficult life situations, as well as the methods of coping-behavior of the respondents. Relationships between teachers' coping-resources and emotional and mental stress as well as the monotony of professional activities are also identified. Adaptive and non-adaptive coping behaviors are differentiated in terms of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral coping strategies are analyzed separately. Based on the theoretical analysis of the scientific literature and empirical research, the author substantiates the relevant conclusions and recommendations for school educators on the effective use of their own coping resources.


Author(s):  
Vaishali Shanmugam

BACKGROUND: COVID -19 pandemic is a very stressful situation for doctors, who face the risk of infection in daily life. Coping is the process by which a person deals with stressful situations or demands. Identifying the coping strategies of our medical professionals will help us to understand their coping styles and to deliver effective interventions to enhance their mental well-being. METHODS: An online survey form with socio-demographic profile and BRIEF COPE tool for assessing different coping strategies was sent to interns, residents, and teaching faculty. The coping strategies were divided into emotion-based, problem-based, and dysfunctional coping, and spearman's correlation was done to determine any correlation between sociodemographic variables and the coping strategies. RESULTS: A total of 84 valid and complete responses were included in the study. There is a variable distribution of mean scores for problem-focused, emotion-focused, and dysfunctional strategies. Age and marital status had a positive correlation with problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies meaning that older adults and married people used these strategies predominantly. Higher designation used problem-focused coping predominantly. Dysfunctional coping strategies had no correlation with any of the sociodemographic variables. CONCLUSION: Sociodemographic factors affecting the coping mechanisms in medical professionals differ from those of the general population seen in previous studies. Within the group of medical professionals, those with higher age, higher designation and married had predominantly adaptive strategies. Interventions targetting maladaptive components of emotion-focused strategies and dysfunctional strategies should be aimed at a younger age group, unmarried people, interns, and residents among the medical professionals to better cope with this COVID scenario.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Asma Nisa ◽  
Salma Siddiqui

The phenomenon of coping has received remarkable recognition and instruments have been developed to survey diverse coping strategies. This study was aimed to translate, adapt, and validate Brief Coping Orientation of Problems Experienced (Brief COPE) inventory (Carver, 1997) in Urdu language by focusing on dispositional coping. The study includes two phases: Phase I comprised of translation and adaptation of Brief COPE in Urdu while in Phase II, psychometric analyses were carried out. The sample of 400 students (men = 200, women = 200) with age range between 19 to 25 years was taken from universities of Islamabad. The Brief COPE (Urdu), World Health Organization - Quality of Life Scale-Brief (Khan, Akhter, Ayub, Alam, & Naeem, 2003), and Aga Khan University Anxiety and Depression Scale (Ali, Reza, Khan, & Jehan, 1998) were administered. Factor analysis of Brief COPE yielded three factors namely, Problem Focused Coping, Avoidance Coping and Emotion Focused Coping that explained 33.66% of variance. The subscales demonstrated acceptable alpha reliability. Psychological distress correlated with avoidance and emotion focused coping; whereas problem focused coping correlated with better life satisfaction. Brief COPE demonstrated good preliminary evidence of internal consistency, convergent, and divergent validity for coping strategies, therefore, could be used in research and clinical settings in future in our culture.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eranthi Weeratunga ◽  
Chandanie Senadheera ◽  
Manjula Hettiarachchi ◽  
Bilesha Perera

Abstract Background Coping strategies are essential in the cancer management/recovery process and show an integral part in patients with cancer globally. In Sri Lanka, validated scales to measure coping are scarce. This study was examined the Sinhalese version of the Brief COPE for its psychometric properties. Methods This scale is self-administered (28 items) and consists of adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies; divided into 14 subscales. Cancer patients were registered ‘first come - first serve’ basis using their appointment register at the Radiotherapy Unit, Oncology ward, Teaching Hospital, Karapitiya, Galle, Sri Lanka. They were requested to complete the Sinhalese version of the Brief COPE and demographic details. Test-retest reliability was checked using the same subjects two weeks later. Factorial validity was performed using exploratory factor and principal component analysis. Results were regarded as statistically significant if p < 0.05. Results The mean (±SD) age of the sample was 61(±12) years. The mean adaptive coping (±SD) and maladaptive coping were 37.50 (±8.14) and 17.10 (±2.44) respectively. The internal consistency of the overall scale was good (Cronbach’s alpha - 0.819). Adaptive and maladaptive coping showed a high Cronbach’s alpha (0.861 and 0.396). The test-retest reliability was found to be 0.66. The Sinhala version of BC was found to have a negative correlation with the CES-D scale but was positively correlated with the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. Seven factors were extracted. Conclusion The Sinhala version of the Brief COPE is a valid and reliable tool to assess coping strategies among patients with cancer. The findings of this study would let the health authorities get an understanding of coping strategies among patients with cancer; and the impact on cancer victims and family members to relieve their suffering.


Author(s):  
Maria Schaffer ◽  
Jordana McLoone ◽  
Claire Wakefield ◽  
Mary-Ellen Brierley ◽  
Afaf Girgis ◽  
...  

Purpose: The long-term management of childhood cancer survivors is complex. Electronic health (eHealth) technology has the potential to significantly improve the management of late effects for childhood cancer survivors and assist their General Practitioners (GP) to coordinate their care. We assessed the acceptability of and perceived benefits and barriers to eHealth use amongst survivors, parents, and GPs. Methods: We conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with survivors of childhood cancer, parents of childhood cancer survivors and their nominated GP. We described a hypothetical eHealth tool and asked participants how likely they would use the tool to manage their survivorship care and their perceived benefits and concerns for use of the tool. We used content analysis to synthesise the data using QSR NVivo12. Results: We interviewed 31 survivors (mean age: 27.0), 29 parents (survivors’ mean age: 12.6) and 51 GPs (mean years practising: 28.2). Eighty-five percent of survivors and parents (n=51), and 75% of GPs (n=38) indicated that they would be willing to use an eHealth tool. Survivors and parents reported that an eHealth tool would increase their confidence in their ability, and their GP’s ability, to manage their survivorship care. GPs agreed that an eHealth tool would provide easier access to survivors’ medical information and increase their capacity to provide support during survivorship. 7% of GPs (n= 4) and 43% of survivors (n=26) reported being hesitant to use eHealth tools due to privacy/security concerns. Conclusion: Overall, eHealth tools were reported to be acceptable to childhood cancer survivors, their parents, and their GPs.


BJPsych Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (S1) ◽  
pp. S238-S239
Author(s):  
Mohammed Binnwejim ◽  
Atheer Alhumade

AimsThe present study aims at investigating the level of stress among Saudi healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the present study sought to identify the coping strategies adopted by Saudi healthcare workers to alleviate the stress related to COVID-19 pandemic.MethodA descriptive cross-sectional study was performed in the period between September and November/2020. A sample of 381 healthcare workers (Physicians, nurses, and technicians) were recruited from King Saud Medical City (KSMC). Both Perceived Stress Scale-4 (PSS-4) and BRIEF-COPE scale were used to assess the levels of stress and the stress coping strategies, respectively. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the healthcare workers’ responses about the COVID-19 related stress and their adopted coping strategiesResultThe results of the study showed that there was a moderate to high level of COVID-19 related stress (11.64 ± 0.73) among the Saudi healthcare workers. In addition, it was found that planning (3.89 ± 0.61), positive reframing (3.69 ± 0.77), venting (3.39 ± 1.01), and emotional support (3.27 ± 0.63) were the most adopted coping strategies by the healthcare workers to overcome and reduce the stress levelsConclusionThe study concluded that both problem-focused and emotion-focused stress coping strategies were the most commonly adopted coping strategies among Saudi healthcare workers in KSMC. The study recommends increasing the number of the healthcare workers in the KSMC, in addition to increasing the healthcare workers’ knowledge, awareness and practice of the stress coping strategies, especially in crisis events, such as COVID-19 pandemic.


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