Psychological distress and coping styles of caregivers of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a longitudinal study

Objectives: To assess psychological distress levels over time in caregivers of patients in the early stage of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and to investigate the association between caregivers’ coping styles and psychological distress over time. Methods: Fifty-four caregivers were followed in a RCT of patients in the early stage of ALS. Questionnaires were administered at baseline, 4, 7, and 10 months. Psychological distress was assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and task-, emotion-, and avoidance-oriented coping styles were identified with the short version of the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS-21). Analyses were performed using linear mixed models. Results: Caregivers’ psychological distress increased by 0.24 points on the HADS per month (p = 0.01). An emotion-oriented coping style was positively associated with psychological distress in caregivers (b = 0.90, p < 0.01), but did not influence the development of psychological distress over time. The avoidance-oriented coping style and the task-oriented coping style were not significantly related to psychological distress. Conclusion: Feelings of distress increase in ALS caregivers during the course of the disease of the patient. Emotion-oriented coping is related to psychological distress; however, emotional coping and distress might represent overlapping constructs. Focusing on one coping style in the care for ALS caregivers may be too simplistic for the complex situations they face, as it ignores the fact that people may require different coping strategies in different situations.