The Association between Levels of Psychological Distress Due to COVID-19 and Psychological Coping Strategies among Nairobi Residents

Abstract

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, people have responded and psychologically coped in different ways. These psychological coping strategies have not been identified and how they relate to the levels of psychological distress largely remain unknown, especially amongst the Nairobi residents. Thus, to explore the association between the levels of distress due to COVID-19 and psychological coping strategies two tools of assessment were used for data collection; the Brief Cope inventory and the COVID-19-related psychological distress for healthy people (CORPD). An ex post facto research design was used to survey 356 Nairobi residents. Data was analysed through the application of descriptive statistics and inferential analysis. The results show that there was no statistical association between problem-focused coping with the psychological distress outcome (r=.222 p value >0.01) and no statistical association between emotion-focused and psychological distress construct (r=.181 p value >0.01). However, there is a statistical correlation between avoidant-focused coping and psychological distress (r=.567 p value <0.01). Thus, residents who engaged in avoidant coping due to the pandemic were more prone to psychological distress, while those who were active problem solvers and emotionally focused had stable psychological health and were less distressed