Gender differences in the quality of life and coping patterns after discharge in patients recovering from burns in China

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate gender differences in quality of life and coping patterns after discharge for patients with burns in China. Cross-sectional survey research design and purposive sampling were used in this study, for which 92 subjects, including 56 males and 36 females, were recruited from a medical centre in central China. Quality of life was measured by the burn-specific health scale-brief (BSHS-B) and coping patterns were measured with the coping with burns questionnaire (CBQ), while demographic data was collected using a demographic questionnaire. An independent t-test and bivariate correlate were employed to analyse the data. The study results showed significant differences in quality of life between genders and coping patterns. There was a statistically significant gender difference in the sub-domain of the BSHS-B score for affect and relations, p < 0.05, and for coping patterns: emotion support, p < 0.05. The findings indicated that optimism/problem solving, revolution/adjustment and avoidance were the most commonly used coping patterns for males and females. The rank orders were same. The study indicated that women are more sensitive to relationships with family after discharge and tend to exhibit depressive symptoms. For women, emotional support is more important than it is for men. A number of significant positive and negative correlations were found among the variables.