4.3 Article

Patterns of Psychological Responses among the Public during the Early Phase of COVID-19: A Cross-Regional Analysis

Publisher

MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18084143

Keywords

COVID-19; psychological flexibility; mental health; prosociality; survey

Funding

  1. Seeding Research Fund, The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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The study found that psychological flexibility plays a significant mediating role in the impact of illness perceptions of COVID-19 on mental health across regions, while the roles of seeking social support, problem-solving, and prosociality vary.
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.

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