Post-traumatic Growth and Psychological Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Serial Mediation Model

Abstract

Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued guidelines for managing to contain, mitigate, and limit of the COVID-19. However, it is more essential to highlight the urgency and importance of evaluating social functioning and mental health status during the pandemic. College students have experienced serious problems and have had to overcome many negative situations brought about by the pandemic. Accordingly, the present study intended to use Chinese college students as sample to examine the positive adoption and changes during the ongoing COVID-19. Guided by literatures in this filed, we explored the internal mechanism of post-traumatic growth affecting psychological resilience, and considered about mediation roles of positive coping styles and cognitive reappraisal. A total of 463 college students from universities in China effectively completed online questionnaires. The result indicated that these four variables were positively correlated with each other (ps < 0.001). More importantly, our findings proved a direct and positive effect on psychological resilience. Positive coping styles and cognitive reappraisal, respectively, mediated the relationship between post-traumatic growth and psychological resilience. Over all, the hypothesized serial model conclusively fits the data: students with high-level post-traumatic growth tended to report increased use of positive coping strategies, which further facilitated their cognitive reappraisal, and subsequently, promoted their psychological resilience. The findings obtained in this study will provide a theoretical basis and possible viable strategies for both targeted crisis intervention and psychological trauma recovery plans.

Network analysis of affect, emotion regulation, psychological capital, and resilience among Chinese males during the late stage of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…As mentioned above, the three nodes were directly connected with the dimensions of PsyCap and psychological resilience. These findings are consistent with previous studies reporting that positive affect and cognitive reappraisal have positive effects, whereas negative affect exerts adverse effects, on PsyCap and psychological resilience ( 32–35 , 77 , 78 , 98 , 99 ). The present study adds further evidence for this from a network-theory perspective.…”

“…In the affect and emotion regulation-psychological resilience network, certain relatively strong cross-community edges were found. STR “strength” was positively correlated with POA “positive affect” and CR “cognitive reappraisal,” but negatively correlated with NEA “negative affect” and ES “expressive suppression.” In general, previous studies have found that resilience is positively correlated with and fueled by positive affect and negatively correlated with negative affect ( 33–35 ), and that emotion expression and cognitive reappraisal can enhance psychological resilience ( 98 , 99 ). These findings further suggest that affect and emotion regulation relate to psychological resilience at the dimension level—a relationship that is commonly overlooked by previous sum-score analyses.…”

The relationship between intolerance of uncertainty, coping style, resilience, and anxiety during the COVID-19 relapse in freshmen: A moderated mediation model

“…mental health status of college students deserves more attention (22). Resilience is defined as positive psychological characteristics that enable individuals to cope effectively with stressful situations.…”

“…With the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the form of health and psychological stress, people in their respective regions need to quickly adapt their thinking and lifestyle to the new changes. Therefore, the role and value of psychological resilience on the physical and mental health status of college students deserves more attention ( 22 ). Resilience is defined as positive psychological characteristics that enable individuals to cope effectively with stressful situations.…”

Post-traumatic growth experience of first-line emergency nurses infected with COVID-19 during the epidemic period—A qualitative study in Shanghai, China

“…On-going education and guidance may protect infected nurses from absorbing or internalizing unmanageable emotions which may lead to compassion fatigue and also help them to gain a deeper understanding of their communication and interactions with patients ( 17 , 65 ). For example, mindfulness, workshops, situational simulation exercise, peer support and other methods can be used to train nurses to better deal with traumatic events ( 66 ). We further encourage medical institutions to set up support organizations, specifically for the mental health of medical staff, form the trauma informed culture as, which could greatly facilitate developing and implementing team PTG intervention strategies.…”