scholarly journals Psychological Impairment and Coping Strategies during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Students in Pakistan: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Author(s):  
Muhammad Salman ◽  
Noman Asif ◽  
Zia Ul Mustafa ◽  
Tahir Mehmood Khan ◽  
Naureen Shehzadi ◽  
...  

Abstract High levels of stress are expected when crises affect people’s lives. Therefore, this web-based, cross-sectional study was conducted among university students from Pakistan to investigate the psychological impairment and coping strategies during COVID-19 pandemic. Google forms were used to disseminate the online questionnaire to assess anxiety (Generalized Anxiety disorder-7), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9) and the coping strategies (Brief-COPE). A total of 1134 responses (age 21.7±3.5 years) were included. The frequency of students having moderate-severe anxiety and depression (score ≥ 10) were ≍ 34% and 45%, respectively. The respondents’ aged ≥ 31 years had significantly lower depression score than those ≤ 20 years (p = 0.047). Males had significantly less anxiety (6.62 ± 5.70 vs 7.84 ± 5.60, p = 0.001) and depression (8.73 ± 6.84 vs 9.71 ± 7.06, p = 0.031) scores. Those having family member, friend or acquaintances infected with disease had significantly higher anxiety score (8.89 ± 5.74 vs 7.09 ± 5.56, p < 0.001). Regarding coping strategies, majority of respondents were found to have adopted religious/spiritual coping (6.45 ± 1.68) followed by acceptance (5.58 ± 1.65), self-distraction (4.97 ± 1.61) and active coping (4.81 ± 1.57). In conclusion, COVID-19 cause significant impairment on mental health of the students. The most frequent coping strategy adopted by students were religious/spiritual and acceptance coping. During epidemics mental health of students should not be neglected.

Author(s):  
Muhammad Salman ◽  
Noman Asif ◽  
Zia Ul Mustafa ◽  
Tahir Mehmood Khan ◽  
Naureen Shehzadi ◽  
...  

AbstractBackgroundCOVID-19 is spreading quickly, causing great deal of fear and unrest in the public. We aimed to assess the psychological impact of COVID-19 on university students and their coping strategies.MethodsThis web-based, cross-sectional study was conducted among students of four Pakistani higher education institutions. Google forms were used to disseminate the online questionnaire to assess anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9), sources of distress (14-items) and the coping strategies (Brief-COPE).ResultsA total of 1134 responses (age 21.7 ± 3.5 years) were included. The frequency of students having moderate-severe anxiety and depression (score ≥ 10) were ≈ 34% and 45%, respectively. The respondents’ aged ≥ 31 years had significantly lower depression score than those below 30 years. Males had significantly less anxiety and depression scores than females. Additionally, those having a family member, friend or acquaintance infected with the disease had significantly higher anxiety score. The main sources of distress were the changes in daily life due to the ongoing pandemic. Regarding coping strategies, majority of respondents were found to have adopted religious/spiritual coping (6.45 ± 1.68) followed by acceptance (5.58 ± 1.65).ConclusionsCOVID-19 have significant adverse impact on students’ mental health. The most frequent coping strategy adopted by them are religious/spiritual coping, acceptance, self-distraction and active coping. It is suggested that mental health of students should not be neglected during epidemics.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zohreh Tavakoli ◽  
Ali Montazeri ◽  
Ali Asghar Farshad ◽  
Zahra Lotfi ◽  
Ismail Noor Hassim

BACKGROUND: Physicians are at risk of having high levels of stress which affect their performance. Finding the stressors and the coping skills to manage stress could be used to develop program to decrease stressful situation. No study has been done on Physicians' stress and coping in Iran. The main objective of this study is to find out the main stressors and coping strategies among Iranian Physicians working in hospital in Tehran-Iran.METHODS: A cross-sectional study was performed on 780 Physicians,using a questionnaire consisted of two sections ;The first section were the stressors which included 67 questions and The second section were The Brief COPE with 28-items for assessing a broad range of coping behaviors among respondents.RESULTS: A total of 1100 questionnaires were distributed to all the available Physicians in the hospitals selected. 780 Physicians returned complete questionnaires with observed response rate of 75%. The majority of respondents (56.9%) were women. The first 3 sources of stress in workplace (Job stressors) are physical environment problem (75%), too much volume of work and poorly paid. The main sources of stress outside the work place (non-job stressors) ranked by Physicians were; financial problem (9.09), not enough time to spend with family (8.87), conflicts with household tasks (7.36).The top five coping strategies used by Iranian Physicians were Behavioral Disengagement, Planning, Instrumental support, Acceptance, and turning to religion.CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed that both workplace and non-job sources of stress can affect the Physicians performance and there is an association between gender and coping skills.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-28
Author(s):  
Retneswari Masilamani ◽  
Myat Moe Thwe Aung ◽  
Hamidah Othman ◽  
Aini Abu Bakar ◽  
Tan Chung Keat ◽  
...  

Literature has documented that student nurses undergo stress in their academic and clinical setting. This raises concerns because stress during undergraduate training may result in psychological or emotional impairment during the nurses’ professional life and ultimately affect the quality of patient care. The Objective of the study was to study the prevalence of stress, and the association between sociodemographic factors, stressors and coping strategies with stress. This was a cross-sectional study on 96-year 1-3 nursing students from a government university done between 2015-2018. Bahasa Malaysia translated The General Health Questionnaire, Stressors in Nursing Student Scale Questionnaire and Brief COPE Questionnaire was used in this study. This study had Malay (95.9%) and female (91.7%) dominated population. The prevalence of stress in student nurses was 25%. No association was reported between sociodemographic factors and stress. Among the 4 stressors educational, clinical, confidence and financial, clinical stressor scored the highest mean 6.40 (SD±3.66). Confidence stressor (AOR=1.26 95% CI 1.04-1.53) was the only stressor associated with stress. The top 3 coping strategies practiced by the student nurses were religion (praying), acceptance and planning. Self-blame (AOR 8.18 95% CI 1.86-35.91) was the only coping strategy associated with stress. Stress management programmes, and workshops on stress and coping strategies should be conducted yearly to ensure a well-balanced environment for good learning experiences and prevent stress related health problems and improved academic performance.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Salman ◽  
Muhammad Hussnain Raza ◽  
Zia Ul Mustafa ◽  
Tahir Mehmood Khan ◽  
Noman Asif ◽  
...  

Background: High level stress is expected when crises starts affecting people's lives and communities which is witnessed in the past epidemics. Infectious diseases outbreaks like the ongoing COVID19 pandemic have negative impact on healthcare workers' (HCWs) mental health, which needs to be investigated. Therefore, we aimed to assess the psychological impact of COVID-19 on frontline HCWs and their coping strategies. Methods: A web-based, cross-sectional study was conducted among HCWs of the Punjab province of Pakistan. The generalized anxiety scale (GAD-7), patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) and Brief-COPE were used to assess anxiety, depression and coping strategies of the respondents. Results: The mean age of respondents (N = 398) was 28.67 ± 4.15 years, with majority of medical doctors (52%). The prevalence of anxiety and depression were 21.4% and 21.9%, respectively. There was no significant difference of anxiety and depression scores among doctors, nurses and pharmacists. Females had significantly higher anxiety (p = 0.003) and depression (p = 0.001) scores than males. Moreover, HCWs performing duties in COVID-19 ICU had significantly higher anxiety score than those from isolation wards (p = 0.020) and other departments (p = 0.014). Depression, not anxiety, score were higher among those who did not receive the infection prevention training. Most frequently adopted coping strategy was religious coping (5.98 ± 1.73) followed by acceptance (5.59 ± 1.55) and coping planning (4.91 ± 1.85). Conclusion: A considerable proportion of HCWs are having generalized anxiety and depression during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings call for interventions to mitigate mental health risks in HCWs.


2021 ◽  
pp. 62-63
Author(s):  
Jaspreet Kaur Kang ◽  
Neeta J Vyas ◽  
Nidhi K Suthar

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) –a global pandemic has severely affected humankind both socially and psychologically. Due to shortage of manpower and excessive load the physiotherapy students were also deputed for rendering their services in various departments ranging from screening to involvement in critical care. The study focuses on to investigate the mental health of students while performing the duties and also the coping strategies used by them to overcome the negative effects of the pressure of work. METHOD: A Cross-sectional study was conducted by using an online, web-based questionnaire, which was distributed to physiotherapy students who worked during the pandemic from April 2020 to June 2021. The respondents were recruited by the non-random convenience sampling method. RESULTS: A total of 448 responses were received in the survey and the majority (more than 40%) of students agreed that they were stressed and anxious while performing their duties. Moreover, more than 75% students relieved the stress by self motivation and family support as a coping strategy CONCLUSION: This study indicated that physiotherapy students were experiencing psychological, emotional distress , and physical while performing the COVID- 19 duties.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-183
Author(s):  
Retneswari Masilamani ◽  
Mohammed Abdulrazzaq Jabbar ◽  
Chang Swee Liang ◽  
Hilary Lim Song You ◽  
Lai Jian Kai Jonathan ◽  
...  

Stress in medical education has been inevitable among medical students. However, the prevalence of stress among pre-clinical and clinical medical students differed by year of study. There were several stressors reported to affect medical students. Therefore, effective coping strategies were applied to manage the stress faced by medical students. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of stress, stressors and coping strategies comparing pre-clinical and clinical Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) medical students, and the associated stressors and stress among them. This was a cross-sectional study with a study population of 223 medical students. Universal sampling was used. A self-administered questionnaire which included socio-demographic characteristics, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), the Medical Students Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ) and the Brief COPE Inventory were used in this study. The overall prevalence of stress among medical students was 48.15%. Clinical students had a higher prevalence of stress (53.73%) compared to pre-clinical students (39.02%). Year 3 students had the highest prevalence of stress (64.58%) compared to other years of study. Nearly 1 out of 2 medical students were stressed (48.15%). Academic Related Stressor ranked the highest and Acceptance was the most practiced coping strategy. The only associated stressor with stress was Academic Related Stressor.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Radwa Sehsah ◽  
Mohammed Hassan Gaballah ◽  
Abdel-Hady El-Gilany ◽  
Ahmed A. Albadry

Abstract Background Forensic physicians are confronted daily with highly stressful and traumatic duties. With repeated exposure, they are at risk of psychological distress, especially burnout. The current study’s objective was to measure the prevalence of burnout and its associated factors among Egyptian forensic physicians, describe their coping strategies, and the correlation between burnout levels and coping strategies. A cross-sectional study on Egyptian forensic physicians was carried out using a self-administered questionnaire. It included personal and occupational data, Maslach Burnout Inventory, and the Brief COPE Inventory. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to identify significant independent predictors of burnout. The correlation between burnout and coping was examined. Results Moderate/high levels of burnout were scored by 72.9 %, 51.9%, and 75.9% of forensic physicians in the emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment subscales, respectively. The significant independent predictors of high emotional exhaustion were being a forensic examiner (AOR, 3.1; 95% CI, 1.3–7.6) and facing stressful job duties more than five times per month (AOR, 4.4; 95% CI, 1.6–12.3). The predictor of high depersonalization was being a forensic examiner (AOR, 22.8; 95% CI, 8.0–64.8), and for low personal accomplishment was being a female (AOR, 3.0; 95% CI, 1.3–6.8). The most frequent coping strategies adopted by forensic physicians were adaptive coping. Conclusions Egyptian forensic physicians have a high prevalence of burnout. Forensic examiners, females with high exposure to stressful duties are more likely to have high burnout levels. Thus, psychoeducation and psychological support services should be applied and made easily accessible to them.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hend Ibrahim Shousha ◽  
Nagwan Madbouly ◽  
Shaimaa Afify ◽  
Noha Asem ◽  
Rabab Maher ◽  
...  

AbstractCOVID-19 patients, especially those with chronic medical illnesses (CMI), may use different coping strategies, to reduce their psychological distress while facing the COVID-19 infection. The aim was to compare anxiety, depression and coping styles between patients infected with COVID-19 disease with and without CMI during the peak of COVID-19 disease in Egypt. This is a cross sectional study, that included an online survey consisting of Arabic versions of General Health Questionnaire-12, Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Brief-COPE scale. Questionnaires were distributed to adult patients with a confirmed diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection during their quarantine in Egypt. One hundred ninety-nine patients responded to the survey, where 46.73% of them had CMI. Religion, emotional support, use of informational support and acceptance were the most used coping strategies by participants. Avoidant coping strategies were frequently used by divorced patients, home quarantined individuals, patients who developed COVID-19 related anxiety/depression and patients who didn’t receive hydroxyl-chloroquine. Approach strategies were frequently used by patients with mild COVID-19. Understanding the used coping strategies has implications for how individuals might be helped to manage their illness during the current presentation and intervene with development of serious long-term mental health conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad N. AlHadi ◽  
Mohammed A. Alarabi ◽  
Khulood M. AlMansoor

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on people’s lives globally. The outbreak in Saudi Arabia worsened when the number of cases and deaths rose in March and April of 2020, leading to a national lockdown. This study aimed to assess the factors associated with mental health symptoms in a sample of people residing in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We conducted an observational cross-sectional study using an online survey distributed via social media, completed by 3032 respondents from all Saudi regions. We collected demographic data, illness history, and scores of validated self-report scales to assess mental health symptoms, intolerance of uncertainty, and coping strategies. Results In total, respondents indicated moderate to very severe symptoms during the pandemic as follows: 20.9% for depression, 17.5% for anxiety, and 12.6% for stress. Younger age, female gender, and history of mental illness were associated with higher levels of depression, anxiety, stress, and insomnia. Intolerance of uncertainty and certain coping strategies (such as denial or self-blame) were associated with more severe symptoms. Conclusions Mental health is a key concern during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for the identified vulnerable groups. Agencies concerned with mental health during crises may use the studied associated factors of mental health symptoms to generate targeted policies or interventions.


Author(s):  
Priyanka Sharma ◽  
Anita Khokhar

Abstract Background: There has been a reported increase in cases of domestic violence during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, however systematic research data is still unavailable. This study was conducted to find out domestic violence prevalence and coping strategies among married adults during lockdown due to COVID-19 in India. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted among married men and women in the month of April 2020. Data regarding socio-demographic profile, domestic violence and coping strategies employed during lockdown was collected thorough google forms. 97.9% forms were completely filled by the respondents. Descriptive analysis was done. Results: Out of 94 study participants, about 7.4% (n=7) had faced domestic violence during lockdown. Out of these 7 participants, about 85.7% (n=6) reported increased frequency of domestic violence during lockdown. About half of the victims chose to ignore it (57.1%, n=4) or used yoga/meditation (42.9%, n=3) to cope. Conclusion: With about 7.4% study participants facing domestic violence during lockdown, it is necessary to study its detailed epidemiology in pandemics so that interventions like helpline numbers, screening of patients during tele-consultation, etc. which can be delivered even during lockdown with the help of healthcare and frontline workers could be devised to address this problem.


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