Covid-19 Pandemic-Related Stress and Coping Strategies Among Adults with Chronic Disease in Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background:The outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic presented a great threat to the physical and mental health of the general population. Patients with chronic disease have always been vulnerable to stressful life conditions. Therefore, determining the perceived stress and coping strategies among chronic disease patients is crucial to minimize the mental health consequences related to the outbreak. Objective: This study aimed to determine COVID-19-related stress and coping strategies among adults with chronic disease in southwest Ethiopia. Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 613 randomly selected adults with chronic disease in southwest Ethiopia. A multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between the COVID-19-related stress score and coping strategy types, and independent sample t-tests and ANOVA tests were conducted. Statistical significance was accepted at p-values <0.05. Results: More than two-thirds of study participants (68.4%) were moderately stressed, 13.9% were severely stressed, and 17.8% had low levels of perceived stress. Active coping (β=1.238, 95% CI: 0.0 to 2.477), denial (β=3.678, 95% CI: 2.44 to 4.915), behavioral disengagement (β=3.669, 95% CI: 2.193 to 5.146), self-blame (β=1.722, 95% CI: 0.146 to 3.297), and religion (β=3.443, 95% CI: 2.028 to 4.858) coping strategies positively predicted the COVID-19-related stress score. Only the acceptance coping strategy (β=−2.710, 95% CI: −3.926 to −1.493) negatively predicted the COVID-19-related stress score. Conclusion: Significant numbers of participants suffered from moderate to severe perceived stress levels due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Both adaptive and maladaptive coping strategy types were significantly associated positively and negatively with perceived stress score among adults with chronic disease. There were significant differences in the mean scores of perceived stress and categories of variables such as family size, duration of disease, and age of the participants.

Real-Time Impact of COVID-19 on Clinical Care and Treatment of Patients with Tuberculosis: A Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

“…Transport disruption, particularly in the partial lockdown period, was among the main barriers for the TB patients, limiting their access to healthcare facilities thereby missing follow-up visits. The finding was in agreement with previous studies conducted in Ethiopia [11,39,[41][42][43] and elsewhere in Africa [44][45][46][47][48] that COVID-19 lockdowns had a significant impact on patients' access to transportation to healthcare facilities. In the case of TB medication follow-up visits, direct-observed therapy procedure necessitates patients' daily visits to healthcare facilities for medication intake this procedure is susceptible to transport disruptions [6,39,40].…”

“…There is a global concern that the world's robust response and investment against the pandemic would impact the already overburdened healthcare system [4][5][6][7]. In Ethiopia, a country in sub-Saharan Africa, the burden of infectious diseases, coupled with shortage of healthcare facilities, healthcare workforce, and personal protective equipment could trigger the spread of the pandemic in the country [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. The country confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on March 13, 2020, and as of June 11, 2021, there have been 273 678 people confirmed positive, of whom 4 231 died (case fatality rate = 1.55%) and 249 028 (90.99%) recovered [16].…”

The Impact of Coping Skills in Post-traumatic Growth of Healthcare Providers: When Mental Health Is Deteriorating Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

“…In addition, adaptive coping strategies may be a way to foster PTG in healthcare providers ( Rodríguez-Rey et al, 2017 ). Coping strategies refer to behavioral and cognitive efforts that help to reduce the influence of a stressful condition and are used when its demands exceed individual resources ( Girma et al, 2021 ). Significant cognitive structures nullified by the traumatic events for purposefully thinking about the trauma were found to play an important role to construct the worldview ( Yang and Ha, 2019 ).…”

Mental distress of parents with chronic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia: A prospective cohort study

“…Furthermore, peer support groups may offer support and allow for exchange of information and coping strategies, to strengthen social supports for parents with chronic conditions and improve their mental health outcomes [ 29 , 32 , 83 ]. Investigating interventions promoting active coping strategies could also be useful, since such coping (including concentrating on one's efforts on doing something about current situation and taking action to make the situation better) has been associated with decrease in stress for individuals with chronic conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 35 ]. Lastly, managing appraisal of threat, such as reaching for reliable information from government, reducing excess media consumption, which can lead to increased negative emotions [ 59 , 85 ] and confusion due to inconsistent and insufficient information regarding the pandemic, strengthening own's coping responses and mechanisms (e.g., those that increase resilience or positive affect), and increasing social support might offer further help.…”