Response Efficacy and Self-Efficacy Mediated the Relationship between Perceived Threat and Psychic Anxiety among College Students in the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Applying Fear Appeals Theory and Social Learning Theory, this study aims to explore the impact of perceived threat on psychic anxiety among college students in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the mediating roles of response efficacy and self-efficacy. An empirical study was conducted using an online cross-sectional survey in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020. A random sampling method was applied to administer questionnaires to 646 Chinese college students. The results showed that: (1) the perceived threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, including perceived susceptibility and severity, was positively correlated with psychic anxiety; (2) self-efficacy mediated the effect of both perceived susceptibility and severity on psychic anxiety, while the response efficacy only mediated the effect of perceived susceptibility on psychic anxiety; and (3) response efficacy and self-efficacy played a serial mediating role on the relationship between perceived susceptibility and psychic anxiety. This study elucidates the relationship between perceived threat and psychic anxiety from the perspective of cognitive appraisal of threat, showing the role positive efficacy appraisal played in reducing psychic anxiety, which could be induced by the perceived threat of major public health emergencies such as COVID-19 pandemic.

Interventions in Chinese Undergraduate Students’ Mental Health: Systematic Review

“…This indicates the worsening mental health condition of this particular population in recent years, especially in the context of the repeated resurgences of the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased the stress of college students and exposed them to new frustrating stressors that caused various mental health concerns [ 2 ]. Given college students’ high stress and anxiety levels during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 88 ], 35 (71%) of the 49 studies [ 2 , 12 , 48 , 49 , 52 - 58 , 61 - 64 , 67 - 69 , 72 - 77 , 81 - 89 , 91 , 92 ] investigated the COVID-19–induced mental health concerns of Chinese undergraduate students and proposed specific interventions in response to the severity of the psychological impact of COVID-19 [ 87 ].…”

“…The interventions proposed in the included studies can be divided into two broad categories: social support and coping strategies. Social support was provided by government authorities [ 49 , 52 - 54 , 61 , 62 , 68 , 72 , 84 , 86 - 88 ]; university authorities [ 12 , 48 , 50 , 51 , 53 - 55 , 57 - 59 , 62 , 64 , 65 , 67 , 69 , 91 , 93 ]; students’ affairs counselors and teachers [ 54 , 75 , 83 - 85 , 87 , 93 ]; family members [ 52 , 54 , 57 , 83 , 94 ]; health care authorities and professionals [ 52 , 63 , 66 , 75 , 77 - 79 , 87 ]; researchers [ 70 , 85 ]; and media-, internet-, and smartphone-based interventions [ 26 , 53 , 55 , 56 , 60 , 71 , 73 , 75 , 77 , 80 , 81 ]. Positive coping strategies were adopted by undergraduate students themselves [ 52 , 82 , 83 , 85 , 86 ,…”

“…Governments need to join hands with school administrators and various social parties to strengthen feasibility research to offer coping strategies, perform psychological interventions, and conduct relevant training [ 68 ]. Specifically, government authorities at all levels need to (1) specially improve efficacy appraisal through providing psychological backup for undergraduate students, by inviting psychiatrists to deliver relevant lectures [ 49 ]; (2) offer free psychological counseling via hotlines to help undergraduate students solve their psychological problems [ 53 ]; (3) develop interventions to improve undergraduate students’ various cognitive, behavioral, and psychosocial responses to public health emergencies such as COVID-19 [ 61 ]; (4) provide parents with relevant education and psychological counseling to help them understand their children’s mental state [ 62 ]; (5) advocate adequate social support and long-term targeted psychological intervention to provide more employment opportunities and develop mental health rehabilitation programs for the fourth-year undergraduate students who suffered more mental problems [ 72 , 84 ]; (6) pay special attention to mental health concerns induced by intolerance of uncertainty [ 86 ]; and (7) particularly care for students who have lost loved ones and experienced family financial losses [ 87 ].…”

How does COVID-19 pandemic affect entrepreneur anxiety? The role of threat perception and performance pressure

“…On this basis, in view of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper takes the COVID-19 pandemic as the antecedent variable of ETP , and regards ETP as a mediator variable based on the cognitive appraisal theory. Previous studies explore the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on individual anxiety from the perspective of job insecurity ( Lin et al, 2021 ) and efficacy ( Zhang et al, 2022 ), while this study provides a new theoretical insight and mechanism for the research of the COVID-19 pandemic and individual emotion through the verification of TP mechanism, that is, to understand the influential mechanism of the COVID-19 pandemic on anxiety from the perspective of TP , which enriches the research results of the influential mechanism of the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneur’s emotion.…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic, as a negative external stimulus, will threaten the achievement of entrepreneurs’ personal goals, and then make them anxious. It is also widely accepted in existing studies that TP of the COVID-19 pandemic will induce psychological anxiety ( Cypryanska and Nezlek, 2020 ; Paredes et al, 2021 ; Zhang et al, 2022 ), which in turn generates EA . Based on this, this paper argues that the COVID-19 pandemic will make entrepreneurs perceive external threats, and the greater the degree of external threats perceived by them, the more likely they are to become anxious.…”