Relationship between stressful life events, coping styles, and schizophrenia relapse.
Qing Wang, Xiaodan Zhu, Xiaojian Jiang and 4 others
PMID 33960095WHAT IT FOUND
Among 248 patients with schizophrenia, stressful life events and negative coping were associated with relapse, while positive coping was associated with lower relapse.
Nurses should ask about stress and coping.
Key findings
01Stressful life events were significantly associated with schizophrenia relapse (r = 0.141, P = 0.026).
02Positive coping was negatively associated with schizophrenia relapse (r = -0.449, P < 0.001), while negative coping was positively associated with schizophrenia relapse (r = 0.127, P = 0.039).
03Both positive and negative coping significantly moderated the association between stressful life events and schizophrenia relapse (moderating effect OR = 1.005, P = 0.008 for positive coping; OR = 1.005, P = 0.012 for negative coping).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Because this was a cross-sectional, correlational and retrospective survey, it cannot show that stressful life events or coping style caused relapse. The sample was a convenience sample from one hospital in China, so it may not represent all patients with schizophrenia. Participants had to have at least 9 years of education and a Clinical Global Impression-Severity score below 6 points, so results may not apply to people with less education or more severe illness. Stressful life events were measured by self-report, which may be affected by recall bias. There is no gold standard for assessing schizophrenia relapse, so the relapse definition may have influenced the findings.
Declared interests
The work was supported by the Key R&D Projects of Ningxia (grant number 2019BFG02023). The two investigators who collected the questionnaire data were not hospital staff and had no conflict of interest with the patients.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that helping patients use positive coping will reduce relapse. The study measured associations at one time and cannot show that coping style caused lower relapse.