Religious coping, care burden and psychological distress among informal caregivers of COVID-19 patients: Results of a cross-sectional survey in Pakistan

Background: There is a complex relationship between health and religiosity. People may use religion to cope with difficulties and uncertainties in their life - such as induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Aims: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between religious coping, care burden and psychological distress among caregivers during COVID-19 in Pakistan. Method: We conducted a cross-sectional survey in Pakistan. We used the Religious Coping Scale (RCOPE), Care Burden Scale (CB), and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) to measure psychological stress from 303 caregivers. Data were analyzed using a hierarchical linear regression model for each of the three outcome variables, which are depression, anxiety, and stress. This analysis allows to investigate whether adding variables significantly improves a model's ability to predict the criterion variable. Results: The findings reveal that emotional care burden, physical care burden, negative religious coping, and social care burden explain a significant amount of the variance of three components of psychological distress among caregivers. Conclusions: Health experts, psychologists, and policymakers can make better strategies to combat pandemics like COVID-19 by incorporating religious coping methods.

Automated summary

This study investigated the relationship between religious coping, care burden, and psychological distress among caregivers during COVID-19 in Pakistan. The results showed that emotional care burden, physical care burden, negative religious coping, and social care burden significantly influenced the psychological distress of caregivers. The findings can help health experts, psychologists, and policymakers develop better strategies to combat pandemics like COVID-19.