Coping Strategies for Nurses’ Distress in Dealing with theCOVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

It is a well-known fact that theCOVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the work stressors of nurses,which were already a problempreviously, causing great distress. Hence, the need foreffective coping strategies has been realized to prevent such distress, especially if a pandemic recurs.Determininghow the types of coping strategies used by nurses impact their distress level in COVID-19 Pandemic.This review was conductedusing thePRISMA Statement Recommendations Checklistand PRISMA—Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-SCR). Thedatabases used wereWilley Library, Science Direct, SCOPUS, and Springer Linkfortheliterature search. Nurse and (“coping type”or “brief cope”) and COVID werethekeywords used for search. The search was carried out using the following initial filters: “English and Indonesian,”language, and “free full text”availability. Only original research articles with a sample of nurses and a focus on coping with the COVID-19 pandemic were synthesized. The review contained21 articles in total. In the Brief-COPE framework,an instrument designed to measure the types of coping strategies,there are severalways ofclassifyingthe typesof copingstrategies: based on outcome, engagement, stressor management goals, and source of support. The top coping strategies were acceptance, active coping, planning, religion, positive reframing, and seeking emotional support. Avoidance coping strategiessignificantly increaseone’s depression and anxiety, whileacceptance and positive reframing protect against anxiety and depression. This knowledge forms the basis of planning and designing a stress management program for dealing with extreme work stressors,such as pandemics. Future research should investigatehow different types of stressors influence the use of coping strategies and distressin other situations.