Minghui Liu, Xinyu Chen, Qing Lu, Daifeng Dong, Yi Zhang, Muli Hu, Na Yao
{"title":"Impact of future-oriented coping on depression among medical staff: A chain mediation model involving psychological resilience and perceived stress.","authors":"Minghui Liu, Xinyu Chen, Qing Lu, Daifeng Dong, Yi Zhang, Muli Hu, Na Yao","doi":"10.11817/j.issn.1672-7347.2025.240451","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Depression is a common negative emotion that can significantly impact physical and mental health. Due to their occupational characteristics, medical staff are more susceptible to depression compared to the general population. This study aims to explore the influence of future-oriented coping on depression among medical staff and the mediating roles of psychological resilience and perceived stress, providing theoretical guidance for depression intervention strategies in this group.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A cross-sectional survey was conducted among medical staff at a tertiary hospital using convenience sampling. Data were collected via the \"Wenjuanxing\" platform. A total of 754 questionnaires were distributed; after excluding invalid responses (e.g., duplicate IPs or insufficient completion time), 655 valid questionnaires were retained (valid response rate: 86.87%). Instruments included a demographic questionnaire, the Future-Oriented Coping Scale, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Self-Rating Depression Scale. All scales demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's α>0.88) and validity. SPSS 27.0 was used for descriptive analysis, and PROCESS macro (Model 6) was used to test the chain mediation model. Harman's one-factor test was applied to control for common method bias.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Descriptive analyses showed that future-oriented coping was positively correlated with psychological resilience and negatively correlated with perceived stress and depression. Mediation analysis revealed that future-oriented coping significantly predicted lower depression levels among medical staff (<i>β</i>=-0.283, <i>P</i><0.001). Psychological resilience partially mediated the relationship (effect size=-0.329, accounting for 34.13% of the total effect), as did perceived stress (effect size=-0.099, 10.27%). A significant chain mediation path was identified: \"future-oriented coping → psychological resilience → perceived stress → depression\" (effect size=-0.253, 26.24%). The total indirect effect accounted for 70.64% of the overall effect, highlighting the substantial role of the mediating pathways.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Future-oriented coping can reduce depressive symptoms in medical staff, with psychological resilience and perceived stress serving as key mediators in a chain structure. These findings suggest that enhancing future-oriented coping strategies and psychological resilience may improve stress adaptation and reduce depression levels in this population.</p>","PeriodicalId":39801,"journal":{"name":"中南大学学报(医学版)","volume":"50 2","pages":"281-289"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"中南大学学报(医学版)","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.11817/j.issn.1672-7347.2025.240451","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Medicine","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objectives: Depression is a common negative emotion that can significantly impact physical and mental health. Due to their occupational characteristics, medical staff are more susceptible to depression compared to the general population. This study aims to explore the influence of future-oriented coping on depression among medical staff and the mediating roles of psychological resilience and perceived stress, providing theoretical guidance for depression intervention strategies in this group.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among medical staff at a tertiary hospital using convenience sampling. Data were collected via the "Wenjuanxing" platform. A total of 754 questionnaires were distributed; after excluding invalid responses (e.g., duplicate IPs or insufficient completion time), 655 valid questionnaires were retained (valid response rate: 86.87%). Instruments included a demographic questionnaire, the Future-Oriented Coping Scale, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Self-Rating Depression Scale. All scales demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's α>0.88) and validity. SPSS 27.0 was used for descriptive analysis, and PROCESS macro (Model 6) was used to test the chain mediation model. Harman's one-factor test was applied to control for common method bias.
Results: Descriptive analyses showed that future-oriented coping was positively correlated with psychological resilience and negatively correlated with perceived stress and depression. Mediation analysis revealed that future-oriented coping significantly predicted lower depression levels among medical staff (β=-0.283, P<0.001). Psychological resilience partially mediated the relationship (effect size=-0.329, accounting for 34.13% of the total effect), as did perceived stress (effect size=-0.099, 10.27%). A significant chain mediation path was identified: "future-oriented coping → psychological resilience → perceived stress → depression" (effect size=-0.253, 26.24%). The total indirect effect accounted for 70.64% of the overall effect, highlighting the substantial role of the mediating pathways.
Conclusions: Future-oriented coping can reduce depressive symptoms in medical staff, with psychological resilience and perceived stress serving as key mediators in a chain structure. These findings suggest that enhancing future-oriented coping strategies and psychological resilience may improve stress adaptation and reduce depression levels in this population.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Central South University (Medical Sciences), founded in 1958, is a comprehensive academic journal of medicine and health sponsored by the Ministry of Education and Central South University. The journal has been included in many important databases and authoritative abstract journals at home and abroad, such as the American Medline, Pubmed and its Index Medicus (IM), the Netherlands Medical Abstracts (EM), the American Chemical Abstracts (CA), the WHO Western Pacific Region Medical Index (WPRIM), and the Chinese Science Citation Database (Core Database) (CSCD); it is a statistical source journal of Chinese scientific and technological papers, a Chinese core journal, and a "double-effect" journal of the Chinese Journal Matrix; it is the "2nd, 3rd, and 4th China University Excellent Science and Technology Journal", "2008 China Excellent Science and Technology Journal", "RCCSE China Authoritative Academic Journal (A+)" and Hunan Province's "Top Ten Science and Technology Journals". The purpose of the journal is to reflect the new achievements, new technologies, and new experiences in medical research, medical treatment, and teaching, report new medical trends at home and abroad, promote academic exchanges, improve academic standards, and promote scientific and technological progress.