As the ageing population in China continues to grow, more people will be living with long-term health conditions and require support from family care-givers. This scoping review therefore aims to explore sources of stress and coping mechanisms adopted by care-givers of older relatives living with long-term conditions in mainland China. Literature searches were conducted in English (CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and SCOPUS) and Chinese (CNKI, WANFANG DATA, CQVIP and CBM) databases between October and November 2019. The searches focused on the stressors and coping mechanisms utilised by family care-givers residing in the community. Narrative synthesis was used to identify themes within the data. Forty-six papers were included: 20 papers from English and 26 from Chinese databases. Six themes captured stressors: care-giving time (N = 22), financial resources (N = 17), role and personal strains (N = 42), preparedness (N = 4), social roles (N = 10) and lack of adequate formal support (N = 22); and one theme captured coping (N = 14). Unmet needs of care-givers of older relatives in mainland China were found to be extensive. Only a few studies had attempted to explore the causal link between stressors, coping and the influence of culture. Findings underscore the significance of adequately capturing intricacies around care-givers’ unmet needs, rather than generalising on the basis of culture. Qualitative studies are critical to providing a better understanding of the relationship between stressors, coping and resources afforded to care-givers by their cultural environment. Having such understanding is crucial to inform the development of competent care, which promotes self-efficacy and self-actualisation in care-givers in mainland China.

Human–wildlife conflict has been the focus of much research, and incidents of damage caused by wildlife to communities, as well as damage inflicted on wildlife by people, have been studied extensively to determine causes, conditions, impacts and mitigation strategies. However, few studies have explored the coping strategies employed by communities to deal with these stressful events. Understanding coping is important, as effective coping builds tolerance towards wildlife, whereas poor coping erodes tolerance and thus jeopardizes conservation. Interviews conducted with people who had experienced damage caused by wild elephants Elephas maximus in eight villages of Assam, in north-east India, found that the stress experienced by the communities as a result of the damage was eased by their religious beliefs associated with elephants, and their feelings of empathy towards these animals. Belief in the elephant as God and as avenger of wrong-doing further strengthened people's coping capacity. These findings have positive implications for elephant conservation, showing that people's tolerance towards marauding elephants can be based on religious beliefs rather than compensation for losses.