Investigating the relationships between resilience, autism-related quantitative traits, and mental health outcomes among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Resilience is a dynamic process through which people adjust to adversity and buffer anxiety and depression. The COVID-19 global pandemic has introduced a shared source of adversity for people across the world, with detrimental implications for mental health. Despite the pronounced vulnerability of autistic adults to anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic, relationships among autism-related traits, resilience, and mental health outcomes have not been examined. As such, we aimed to describe the relationships between these traits in a sample enriched in autism spectrum traits during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also aimed to investigate the impact of demographic and social factors on these relationships. Across three independent samples of adults, we assessed resilience factors, autism-related traits, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. One sample (recruited via the Autism Spectrum Program of Excellence, n = 201) was enriched for autism traits while the other two (recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk, n = 624 and Facebook, n = 929) drew from the general population. We found resilience factors and quantitative autism-related traits to be inversely related, regardless of the resilience measure used. Additionally, we found that resilience factors moderate the relationship between autism-related traits and depression symptoms such that resilience appears to be protective. Across the neurodiversity spectrum, resilience factors may be targets to improve mental health outcomes. This approach may be especially important during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and in its aftermath.

Psychosocial Functioning and the Educational Experiences of Students with ASD during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland

“…The stress worsened their well-being and resulted in increased tension and feelings of difficulty in mental functioning. Other studies [ 47 , 48 , 57 , 58 , 59 ] reported similar findings, confirming that increased stress in situations of isolation was experience by many respondents with ASD.…”

“…Results of his study indicate that both positive and negative consequences can be observed in the psychosocial functioning of people with ASD during the pandemic. The ambiguous impact of lockdown has been confirmed by a number of studies in which individuals with ASD as well as their families indicate both positive effects related to the reduction of social demands and normalization of daily life, as well as a negative impact of the pandemic on their mental health [ 48 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 ].…”

Emotion regulation, resilience, and mental health: A mediation study with university students in the pandemic context

“…H3 Since resilience is a dynamic process through which people adjust to adversity and buffer anxiety and depression (Taylor et al, 2022), there is evidence of an association with emotion regulation strategies (e.g., Mestre et al, 2017) and some studies suggest that emotional regulation strategies like cognitive reappraisal can protect a person' mental health by enhancing resilience (Mestre et al, 2017; Ye et al, 2022). We therefore expect that resilience dimensions will mediate the relation between emotion regulation and stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms.…”

Effect of resilience training on stress coping strategies among employees engaged in hard jobs during COVID-19 pandemic.

“…Working in the steel industry is classified as a hard job with high stress. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the stress of employees working in this industry in the last 2 years by creating unknown conditions (Taylor et al, 2022). Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of resilience training on stress coping strategies among the steel company personnel and their spouses under stressful conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic.…”