ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
This article is part of the Research TopicNavigating Mental Health Through Major Life Transitions: Challenges and Support Across the LifespanView all 5 articles
Post-Traumatic Growth, Resilience, Perceived Social Support and Coping Style among Parents of Very Low Birth Weight Infants: A Multi-Center,Cross-Sectional Study
Provisionally accepted
- Fujian Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China
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Background: Post-traumatic growth (PTG) can guide parents to cherish life more deeply, thereby improving the quality of care they provide to their children. However, despite evidence linking a psychological resilience with PTG, the processes through which aspects of resilience influences PTG remain unclear. This study investigated the mediating role of perceived social support and coping styles in the relationship between resilience and PTG. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 344 parents of very low birth weight (VLBW) infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care units of nine hospitals at level two or above in Fujian Province were selected by convenience sampling. Five self-reported questionnaires were completed by the participants. The data were analyzed using SAS 9.4. Structural equation modeling was employed to determine the relationships between the components using AMOS 24.0. Results: Psychological resilience can directly influence PTG (effect = 1.598, 95% CI = 1.388-1.824 ,p < 0.05) or indirectly affect it through the mediating role of positive coping style (effect = 0.039, 95% CI = 0.009-0.079,p < 0.05). Meanwhile, perceived social support can only influence PTG through a positive coping style (effect = 0.020, 95% CI = 0.004-0.047,p < 0.05). Conclusion: This study provides further insight into the importance of strengthening resilience, providing support, and developing positive coping strategies from nurses and healthcare providers for promoting PTG among VLBW infants' parents. It is especially important to implement interventions directly targeting the enhancement of resilience among parents of VLBW infants.
Keywords: Infant, Very low birth weight, Post-traumatic growth, resilience, perceivedsocial support, Coping Style
Received: 16 Aug 2025; Accepted: 29 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 吴, Pan and Jiang. 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: Xiu-Min Jiang, jzc0427@163.com
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