Relationships between stigma, coping styles, self-care and post-traumatic growth among colorectal cancer patients with permanent enterostomy: A cross-sectional study

Post-traumatic growth is a positive outcome that helps buffer the adverse experiences in patients after traumatic enterostomy. This study aimed to investigate post-traumatic growth among patients with permanent enterostomy and explore the relationships between stigma, coping styles, self-care, and post-traumatic growth. Convenience sampling was used to enroll patients who underwent a permanent enterostomy. A total of 305 eligible participants completed self-reported questionnaires on stigma, coping styles, self-care, and post-traumatic growth, respectively. Positive coping style and self-care were positively correlated with post-traumatic growth (p < 0.001), whereas, negative coping style and stigma were negatively correlated with post-traumatic growth (p < 0.001). Serial mediation models revealed that stigma could significantly predict post-traumatic growth through five indirect pathways: (1) positive coping (effect = −0.129); (2) negative coping (effect = −0.051); (3) self-care (effect = −0.115); (4) chain mediation of positive coping and self-care (effect = −0.049); (5) chain mediation of negative coping and self-care (effect = −0.019), accounting for 17.6 %, 6.9 %, 15.6 %, 6.7 %, and 2.6 % of the total effect, respectively. Our findings demonstrated that coping styles and self-care acted as separate and sequential mediators affecting the relationship between stigma and post-traumatic growth in patients who underwent enterostomy. Therefore, interventional strategies targeting coping styles and self-care may provide synergistic benefits to patients with permanent enterostomy by enhancing their post-traumatic growth.