Social Support and Loneliness Among Chinese Caregivers of Children With Chronic Kidney Disease During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis.

Lin Shi,Haiping Yang,Xiaoqin Li,Mo Wang,Yunzhi Zhang,Xuelan Chen,Daoqi Wu,Hengci Zhang

doi:10.3389/fped.2020.570535

Abstract

To evaluate social support and loneliness as well as their association among caregivers of children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) from China during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We collected data for caregivers of children with CKD and caregivers of healthy children and matched the two groups using propensity score matching (PSM). We compared the differences in social support and loneliness between the two groups after matching and analyzed the relationship between social support and loneliness in the observation group. Before PSM, we analyzed the data for 247 caregivers of children with CKD and 315 caregivers of healthy children from 13 provinces. After PSM, the two groups each included 202 caregivers. The social support score of caregivers of children with CKD was lower than that of caregivers of healthy children (P < 0.002), while the loneliness score was higher for caregivers of children with CKD than for caregivers of healthy children (P < 0.008). The social support score was negatively correlated with the loneliness score (r = −0.598, P < 0.001). Caregivers of children with CKD experienced less social support and greater loneliness than caregivers of healthy children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, greater attention should be paid to providing social support for caregivers of CKD children and to improving the ability of these caregivers to cope with loneliness.

Highlights

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is the third most common cause of death after cancer and heart disease, and has become one of the major diseases that threaten global public health [1]
Studies have confirmed that good social interaction and minimal loneliness are associated with positive emotions [5,6,7], whereas less social support and greater loneliness are associated with insufficient self-demand and reduced social interaction [8, 9]
Our study showed that caregivers of children with CKD had less social support and greater loneliness than caregivers of healthy children

Summary

Introduction

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is the third most common cause of death after cancer and heart disease, and has become one of the major diseases that threaten global public health [1]. Insufficient social support has significantly increased anxiety and stress among first-line medical staff in Wuhan [16]; at the same time, the resulting loneliness and unemployment have exposed more children and women to domestic violence [17]. The outbreak of infectious disease caused sharp reductions in social communication, shortages of living and pandemic prevention materials, a rising unemployment rate, and increasing family economic pressure. Evidence shows that caregivers of children with chronic diseases, such as tumors, have low social support and a high sense of loneliness [18,19,20], but there have been no studies evaluating the association between social support and loneliness in caregivers of children with CKD during the COVID-19 pandemic

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