Effects of Health Anxiety, Social Support, and Coping on Dis-sociation with Mediating Role of Perceived Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: Our study aimed to examine how modulating variables such as social support, health anxiety, coping, gender, being separated from home, and lockdown can modify or amplify the effect of perceived stress as a starting variable in the point of view of the output variable, dissociation. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in online form at two points in time: the beginning and the later stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: We received a total of 1711 responses. Perceived stress moderately correlated with dissociation in both International and Hungarian samples. Health anxiety showed a strong direct and indirect correlation with dissociation. Regarding social support, the support of family significantly decreased the dissociative experiences in the Hungarian sample through mediating the stress and directly as well. In the international sample, the goal-oriented coping strategy had a strong decreasing effect on all dissociation scales in the first measurement, through mediation of perceived stress. As to the Hungarian sample, positive thinking was found to decrease dissociation through decreasing perceived stress. Conclusion: The cause and effect relationship between stress and dissociation may be tinctured by health anxiety, coping and social support, influencing dissociacion directly and indirectly. Social support, mainly support of the family and problem-focused coping strategies seem to alleviate dissociation-provoking effect of stress.

Population under Stress: The Coping Mechanisms of Lebanese Adults in Times of Intermingling Crises and Their Relationship with Stress

“…Problem-focused coping was found to be associated with a lower stress level, whereas avoidant coping was found to be associated with a higher level of stress. Tis fnding is expected since similar patterns were reported in multiple populations subjected to diferent types of stressors [27,28]. Problem-focused coping was found to be associated with a better quality of life for participants in a population in the United States in the context of COVID-19 as a stressor [29].…”