The Relationship Between Social Support and Coping in Critical Care Patients in Taiwan

Abstract

The purposes of this descriptive correlational study were to identify the common sources of social support and the coping strategies most frequently used by critical care patients, and to examine the relationship between social support and coping in this group. A total of 41 adult subjects (mean age 45.8, range 18-60) were selected from six critical care units in Taiwan, the Republic of China. A Demographic Data Questionnaire, the Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire (NSSQ), and the revised Ways of Coping Checklist (WCCL) were translated into the Chinese language for use to Taiwan. Pearson correlations were computed for the NSSQ and WCCL scores. Findings indicated that the most common sources of social support for critical care patients were family or relatives (57.3%). The coping strategy most frequently used was problem-focused coping (Problem-Focused = 22.9%, Seeks Social Support = 22.2%). The hypotheses regarding social support and coping were not fully supported. Additional findings were that married subjects perceived higher social support in both Total Functional Support (t=3.98, p=.01) and Total Network Support (t=2.65, p=.01), and females had a significantly higher score than did males on Wishful Thinking ([relative] females = 23.4%, males= 20.5%, t=3.19, p=.01).