Coping strategies and quality of life among Thai family carers of community-dwelling persons living with dementia: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Aims: To examine the association between coping strategies and quality of life (QOL) among Thai family carers of persons living with dementia. Design: A descriptive correlational quantitative design. Methods: Data were collected between January 2021 and April 2021. A multi-pronged approach for recruitment was used. Participants completed measures assessing carer demographic characteristics, coping styles, QOL, perceived stress and perceived social support. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to determine the association between types of coping strategies used and QOL scores, adjusting for carer characteristics and carers' stress and social support. Results: There were 86 participants (mean age 52.84 years), and the majority were female (87.2%). After adjusting for covariates, hierarchical multiple regression revealed that only positive emotion-focused coping demonstrated a statistically significant association with total QOL scores. Problem-focused coping and negative emotion-focused coping were not significantly associated with total QOL scores of Thai family carers of persons living with dementia. Conclusion: Positive emotion-focused coping was associated with improved QOL scores. This finding supports the use of positive emotion-focused coping in Thai family carers of persons living with dementia, which potentially could improve the QOL of this population. Impact: It is essential to differentiate between positive and negative emotion-focused coping to generate valid estimates of the association between coping and QOL. Nurses should encourage carers to use positive emotion-focused coping strategies as these strategies were found to be helpful in enhancing carers' QOL.