Perceived psychological impact of COVID-19 on patients with selected chronic diseases and their coping strategies

Corona Virus Disease-19 (COVID-19) has caused psychological distress in patients with chronic diseases, irrespective of whether they had contracted COVID infection or not. However, coping with such serious impact is necessary and the outcome varies based on the coping strategies adapted. Hence this research was conducted to analyze the perceived psychological impact of COVID-19 on patients affected with selected chronic diseases and their coping strategies. Following proportionate stratified Sampling technique 144 Subjects, who had not contracted COVID-19 during the study period but were admitted with history of selected chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease in selected acute care, adult wards of a tertiary care hospital in India, were selected for the study. After obtaining consent, data was collected through interview using researcher prepared instrument. Majority of the study Subjects (57.6%) were above 50 years of age and 56.9% were females. 13.6% of the subjects expressed moderate psychological impact due to COVID pandemic. 64% of the study subjects reported to practice less amount of avoidant coping. Majority of them (62.5%) had followed high amounts of emotion focused coping and 34% of them had followed problem focused coping. As we continue to face ongoing threats of COVID, it is our vital responsibility to teach patients and public on positive coping strategies to reduce their psychological impact and to prevent them from taking resort with maladaptive coping strategies.