Patterns of psychological responses among the public during the early phase of covid-19 : A cross-regional analysis
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2021-04-14
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This study aimed to compare the mediation of psychological flexibility, prosociality and coping in the impacts of illness perceptions toward COVID-19 on mental health among seven regions. Convenience sampled online survey was conducted between April and June 2020 from 9130 citizens in 21 countries. Illness perceptions toward COVID-19, psychological flexibility, prosociality, coping and mental health, socio-demographics, lockdown-related variables and COVID-19 status were assessed. Results showed that psychological flexibility was the only significant mediator in the relationship between illness perceptions toward COVID-19 and mental health across all regions (all ps = 0.001–0.021). Seeking social support was the significant mediator across subgroups (all ps range = <0.001–0.005) except from the Hong Kong sample (p = 0.06) and the North and South American sample (p = 0.53). No mediation was found for problem-solving (except from the Northern European sample, p = 0.009). Prosociality was the significant mediator in the Hong Kong sample (p =0.016) and the Eastern European sample (p = 0.008). These findings indicate that fostering psychological flexibility may help to mitigate the adverse mental impacts of COVID-19 across regions. Roles of seeking social support, problem-solving and prosociality vary across regions.
Description
Funding Information: Funding: The study was supported by the Seeding Research Fund, The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
COVID-19, Mental health, Prosociality, Psychological flexibility, Survey, 3.3 Health sciences, 5.1 Psychology, 1.1. Scientific article indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus database, Pollution, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
Citation
Chong, Y Y, Chien, W T, Cheng, H Y, Ļubenko, J, Lamnisos, D, Presti, G, Squatrito, V, Constantinou, M, Nicolaou, C, Papacostas, S, Aydin, G, Ruiz, F J, Garcia-Martin, M B, Obando-Posada, D P, Segura-Vargas, M A, Vasiliou, V S, McHugh, L, Höfer, S, Baban, A, Neto, D D, da Silva, A N, Monestès, J L, Alvarez-Galvez, J, Blarrina, M P, Montesinos, F, Salas, S V, Őri, D, Kleszcz, B, Lappalainen, R, Ivanović, I, Gosar, D, Dionne, F, Merwin, R M, Gloster, A T, Karekla, M & Kassianos, A P 2021, 'Patterns of psychological responses among the public during the early phase of covid-19 : A cross-regional analysis', International journal of environmental research and public health, vol. 18, no. 8, 4143. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084143