Gender identity’s impact on Pakistan’s adoption of emotion-focused, and religious-spiritual coping mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic

Gender and sociodemographic characteristics have impacted coping strategies in the significant psychological and social disturbances created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies suggest that gendered social roles influence people’s use of preventive, emotional, and religious-spiritual coping mechanisms, but there is still little data from Pakistan. Using social role theory as a guide, this study investigated how gender affects the adoption of religious-spiritual, preventive, emotion-focused, and non-constructive coping mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan. The study also looked at how sociodemographic factors influence coping mechanisms. 500 adults in Pakistan participated in a cross-sectional online survey. Structured questionnaires measuring coping methods on established Likert scales were used to gather data. For sociodemographic and gender factors, descriptive statistics were calculated. After adjusting for age, education, household income, marital status, family structure, and family size, multivariate regression models were used to investigate the impact of gender on coping techniques. At p < .05, p < .01, and p < .001, statistical significance was assessed. Even after controlling for sociodemographic variables, women reported significantly greater levels of religious-spiritual coping (β = 0.32, p < .001), preventive coping (β = 0.28, p < .01), and emotion-focused coping (β = 0.18, p < .05) than males. For non-constructive coping, there were no discernible gender differences (β = 0.04, p > .05). According to descriptive statistics, men scored somewhat higher on certain hygienic activities, but women were more likely to practice prayer, charitable giving, maintain preventive behaviors, and emotional regulation. The results show that during the COVID-19 epidemic in Pakistan, gender is a key determinant of adaptive coping mechanisms. The impact of social and cultural norms is shown by women’s higher participation in religious-spiritual, preventive, and emotion-focused coping. These findings highlight the significance of developing culturally aware and gender-sensitive public health interventions to promote adaptive coping during medical emergencies.