Coping With Governmental Restrictions: The Relationship Between Stay-at-Home Orders, Resilience, and Functional, Social, Mental, Physical, and Financial Well-Being

Abstract

The coronavirus outbreak has led to abrupt changes in people’s daily lives as many state governments have restricted individuals’ movements in order to slow the spread of the virus. We conducted a natural experiment in the United States of America in April 2020, in which we compare responses from states with “stay-at-home orders” (3 states) and no such orders (6 states). We surveyed 458 participants (55.6% female, age range 25–64, Mage = 36.5) and examined the effects of these government-imposed restrictions on social, mental, physical, and financial well-being as well as the mediating role of resilience. Structural equation modeling reveals that resilience buffers stay-at-home orders’ potential side-effects on well-being. Specifically, individuals living in states with stay-at-home orders report lower functional well-being than individuals living in states without such orders, which negatively relates to resilience. Resilience in turn is associated with higher social, mental, physical, and financial well-being. Thus, resilience can be seen as an effective means of buffering stay-at-home orders’ potential negative effects on the components of well-being. Our results indicate the central role of resilience, which is crucial in dampening the effects of stay-at-home orders on well-being. Following our results, governments and policymakers should focus their efforts on strengthening individuals’ resilience, which is a key predictor of social, mental, financial, and physical well-being.

The Impact of Creditworthiness on Financial Well-Being, Anxiety, Depression, Hopelessness, and Suicide

“…23-43). Several recent research studies also cite different, measurable indicators of wellbeing (e.g., Barrett et al, 2021;Cherney et al, 2020;Friedline et al, 2020;Iannello et al, 2021;Sorgente et al 2019). Creditworthiness, as primarily defined by credit scores, needed further examination to understand the role of credit scores in addition to other wellbeing and financial wellbeing factors.…”

“…Linton et al (2016) named six thematic well-being dimensions, including mental being, which was used interchangeably with psychological, physical, social, spiritual, and personal functioning, and one global or overall wellbeing construct (p. 11). Barrett, Hogreve, and Brüggen (2021) emphasize distinctive and measurable elements of wellbeing, namely "physical, mental, psychosocial, financial, and functional" (p.3).…”

“…Additional environmental and social conditions, such as the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with stay-at-home restrictions, negatively affect wellbeing across several domains, including mental, physical, social, functional, and financial wellbeing (Barrett, Hogreve, and Brüggen, 2021). Additional concerns related to the pandemic contributed to compromised parenting and an increase in individual and family stressors, and families around the globe have "a new range of stressors that threaten their health, safety, and economic well-being" (Brown, Doom, Lechuga-Peña, Watamura, and Koppels, 2020, p. 2).…”

Differences in and drivers of mental, social, functional, and financial well-being during COVID-19: Evidence from Australia, France, Germany, and South Africa

“…Mental or psychological well-being is related to individuals’ mental states and perceptions such as anxiety, worry, and stress. We follow Barrett, Hogreve [ 23 ] and rely on Tennant et al’s [ 24 ] conceptualization of mental well-being. Social well-being captures people’s fulfilment in terms of social interactions and sense of belonging to a community [ 20 ].…”

COVID-19 Apps as a Digital Intervention Policy: A Longitudinal Panel Data Analysis in South Korea

“…The novel coronavirus has also brought a psychological impact, such as stress, feelings of isolation, and depression, to everyday life [2 , 35] . Especially when under a high threat condition, people are likely to engage more in various coping strategies [28 , 30 , 35] .…”