Resilience, Social Support, and Coping as Mediators between COVID-19-related Stressful Experiences and Acute Stress Disorder among College Students in China

Background The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak might induce acute stress disorder (ASD) to people living in the epidemic regions. The current study aims to investigate the association of COVID-19-related stressful experiences with ASD and possible psychological mechanisms of the association among college students. Methods Data were collected from 7,800 college students via an online survey during the initial stage of the COVID-19 outbreak in China (from 31 January to 11 February 2020). Existing scales were adapted to measure stressful experiences, resilience, coping, social support, and ASD symptoms. Path analysis was employed to examine the research hypotheses. Results Among the 7,800 college students, 61.53% were women and their mean age was 20.54 years. Both direct and indirect effects from COVID-19-related stressful experiences to ASD symptoms were significant. The relationship between COVID-19-related stressful experiences and ASD could be mediated by resilience (beta = 0.01,p < .001), adaptive coping strategies (beta = 0.02,p < .001), and social support (beta = 0.01,p < .001); while not being significantly mediated by maladaptive coping strategies. Conclusion The findings presented the ASD symptoms related to the COVID-19 outbreak and the mediating role of interpersonal and intrapersonal factors in the association. Identifying the risk and protective factors is important to reduce acute psychological responses.