ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Anxiety and Stress Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1543484
Coping tendencies play partial mediating role between social support and anxiety/depression among Chinese keloid patients
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Medicine, Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu Province, China
- 2Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, China
- 3School of Nursing and Rehabilitation, Nantong University, Jiangsu, China
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Background In addition to producing pain and itching, keloids can cause psychological symptoms, including anxiety and depression. We aimed to investigate the prevalence and underlying factors of anxiety/depression in Chinese keloid patients and to explore the mediating role between social support and anxiety/depression. Methods A total of 202 self-reported questionnaires were collected from keloid patients, including the General Information Questionnaire, Vancouver Scar Assessment Scale (VSS), Patient and Observer Scar Assessment Scale (POSAS), Dermatological Problems Quality of Life Inventory (DLQI), Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS), Simple Coping Styles Scale (SCSQ), Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Results The mean scores for anxiety and depression were 9.82±2.20 and 7.96±2.70, respectively. Annual income (OR=0.258), GSES score (OR=0.2955), pain symptoms (OR=1.281) and coping styles (OR:3.321) were significantly associated with HADS anxiety in keloid patients (P<0.05), whereas use of support (OR=0.607) was significantly associated with HADS depression in keloid patients (p<0.05). The area under the curve (AUC) for the combined anxiety ROC for annual income, coping styles, pain symptoms and GSES scores was 0.835. PROCESS analysis concluded that coping tendencies partially mediated the relationship between social support and depression, with the mediating effect accounting for 38.58% of the total effect. Conclusion Coping tendency in keloid patients played a partial mediating role between social support and depression. Future studies should further explore how training in coping tendencies can enhance the effectiveness of social support to more effectively prevent and reduce depressive symptoms. Keywords Keloid, Anxiety, Depression, Coping tendencies, Social support
Keywords: Keloid, Anxiety, Depression, Coping tendencies, social support
Received: 11 Dec 2024; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang, Xu, Wu, Gu, Dong, Zhang and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Chen Dong, dongchensc@126.com
Li Zhang, dailin1212@sina.com
Xiaodong Chen, dermatochen@ntu.edu.cn
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