The mediation effects of coping style on the relationship between social support and anxiety in Chinese medical staff during COVID-19

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 has been a pandemic around the world, which affirmatively brought mental health problems to medical staff. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of anxiety in Chinese medical staff and examine the mediation effects of coping styles on the relationship between social support and anxiety. Methods A cross-sectional study via internet survey was conducted from 15 March to 30 March, 2020. The social demographic data, Self-rated Anxiety Scale, Social Support Rate Scale and Trait Coping Style Scale were collected. Pearson correlation and a structural equation model were performed to examine the relationships of these variables. The bootstrap analysis was conducted to evaluate the mediation effects. Results A total of 453 medical staff participated in this study. The mean score of SAS was 46.1 (SD = 10.4). Up to 40.8% of the participants had anxiety symptoms. The participants lived with family members had lower SAS score (45.1 ± 9.8 vs 49.6 ± 11.8). Social support was negatively associated with anxiety, mediated by positive coping and negative coping partially significantly with an effect size of − 0.183. Conclusions Chinese medical staff had a high level of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Coping styles had effects on the association between social support and anxiety. Sufficient social support and training on positive coping skills may reduce anxiety in medical staff.

Psychological distress among healthcare providers during COVID-19 in Asia: Systematic review and meta-analysis

“…A total of 159,194 healthcare providers from 23 different Asia countries were involved in this systematic review and meta-analysis. Almost half (n = 70) of the studies were conducted in China [ 8 , 11 , 23 – 90 ], followed by 15 studies in India [ 10 , 91 – 104 ], 11 studies in Turkey [ 105 – 115 ], 10 studies in Saudi Arabia [ 116 – 125 ], 6 studies in Pakistan [ 126 – 131 ], 4 studies in Indonesia [ 132 – 135 ] and Nepal [ 136 – 139 ] respectively, 3 studies in Malaysia [ 140 – 142 ], Singapore [ 143 – 145 ], Japan [ 146 – 148 ] and Iran [ 149 – 151 ] respectively with 2 studies in Oman [ 152 , 153 ], Jordan [ 154 , 155 ], Philippines [ 156 , 157 ] and Bangladesh [ 158 , 159 ] respectively. Besides, Korea [ 160 ], Qatar [ 161 ], and Iraq [ 162 ] which each had one study, there were also some multinational studies that were conducted, with 2 of them involving several countries in Asian Pacific [ 9 , 163 ] and another one involving both Egypt and Saudi Arabia [ 164 ] (Table A4 in S4 Table ).…”

Relationship between social support, coping strategy against COVID-19, and anxiety among home-quarantined Chinese university students: A path analysis modeling approach

“…First, the current study indicated that the level of anxiety during the COVID-19 outbreak was higher than the normal period before the pandemic. However, it was much lower than the Chinese medical staff (36.25 ± 4.57 vs 46.1 ± 10.4) (Zhu et al, 2020 ). In the same vein, the anxiety level of the college students was lower than the suspected infectious cases who were required to be self-isolated at home in the Chinese epicenter (Xiao et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Further, social support also exerted indirect effect on anxiety through the partial mediating role of positive coping and negative coping. This COVID-19-related study provided preliminary evidence that the impact of social support on anxiety may operate through coping (Zhu et al, 2020 ). Although how different social support sources influence coping strategies against COVID-19 is unclear, previous disaster-related study which demonstrated a positive association between social support and problem-focused coping under typhoon circumstances proved an evidence on the link between social support and coping strategies (Chao, 2017 ).…”

“…Among the interacting factors that have been shown to influence anxiety, social support has been identified as one of the most valuable predictors of anxiety. There is considerable evidence that social support is an effective factor to alleviate anxiety (Zhu et al, 2020 ). A Chinese study in February 2020 demonstrated that medical students who possessed medium or low level of social support were inclined to elicit an elevated possibility of mild to severe anxiety than those with high level of social support (Yin et al, 2021 ), anxiety being associated with reduced likelihood of seeking social support.…”

Coping strategies adopted by Australian frontline health workers to address psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Participant responses were measured at only one time-point. In practice there is likely to be a complex inter-relationship among stressors at home and at work, lockdown restrictions, coping strategies, and poor mental health symptoms [ 45 ] that cannot be untangled with a cross-sectional survey alone. Longitudinal research is urgently required to better understand the relationship among these factors.…”