Mehrabi Elham, Mohammadi Eesa, Rasekhi Aliakbar, Asgari Esfandiar, Rezayat Fatemeh
Department of Psychiatric Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Nursing, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2025 Jul 24;30(4):517-523. doi: 10.4103/ijnmr.ijnmr_360_23. eCollection 2025 Jul-Aug.
Patients with cancer often struggle with coping with stress and anxiety. Additionally, the COVID-19 crisis has reduced the availability of coping strategies for managing stress. This study aims to determine coping strategies and related factors in patients with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This descriptive study was conducted on 305 patients with cancer admitted to the Cancer Institute of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, Iran, from 2021 to 2022. The researcher used a simple random sampling method. To collect data, a demographic and clinical information questionnaire, along with the Lazarus and Folkman (1985) Ways of Coping Questionnaire, was utilized. Data were analyzed using Spearman's correlation, Mann-Whitney, and ANOVA tests.
The mean (SD) age of participants was 53.90 (13.54). Among the participants, 155 (50.82%) were men, 243 (79.67%) had been diagnosed less than 2 years prior, 166 (54.43%) were undergoing chemotherapy, and 81 (26.56%) had colon cancer. Patients predominantly used positive reappraisal (13.51 (2.61)) and escape-avoidance (12.87 (2.51)) coping strategies more than other strategies. A significant relationship was found between the variables of age, sex, number of children, and education level with the coping strategies of the patients ( < 0.05).
The findings indicate that patients with cancer frequently used emotion-based strategies to manage their stress and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. It appears that coping strategies adopted by patients differ somewhat from those before the pandemic. Thus, it is recommended to adjust training according to the demographic factors related to the coping strategies utilized by patients.
癌症患者常常在应对压力和焦虑方面存在困难。此外，新冠疫情危机减少了管理压力的应对策略的可用性。本研究旨在确定新冠疫情期间癌症患者的应对策略及相关因素。
本描述性研究于2021年至2022年对伊朗德黑兰伊玛目霍梅尼医院癌症研究所收治的305例癌症患者进行。研究者采用简单随机抽样方法。为收集数据，使用了一份人口统计学和临床信息问卷以及拉扎勒斯和福克曼（1985年）的应对方式问卷。数据采用斯皮尔曼相关性分析、曼-惠特尼检验和方差分析进行分析。
参与者的平均（标准差）年龄为53.90（13.54）岁。参与者中，155例（50.82%）为男性，243例（79.67%）在不到2年前被诊断出癌症，166例（54.43%）正在接受化疗，81例（26.56%）患有结肠癌。患者主要使用积极重新评价（13.51（2.61））和逃避-回避（12.87（2.51））应对策略，比其他策略使用得更多。发现年龄、性别、子女数量和教育水平等变量与患者的应对策略之间存在显著关系（<0.05）。
研究结果表明，在新冠疫情期间，癌症患者经常使用基于情绪的策略来管理他们的压力和焦虑。患者采用的应对策略似乎与疫情前有所不同。因此，建议根据与患者所采用应对策略相关的人口统计学因素调整培训。
