The Health-Sustaining, Moderating, and Mediating Roles of Sense of Coherence in the Relationship between Fear of COVID-19 and Burnout among South African Teachers

Abstract

The current study focuses on the interrelationship between fear of COVID-19, sense of coherence, and burnout. Participants (n = 355) were school teachers from across all provinces in South Africa who completed the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, the Sense of Coherence Scale, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. It was hypothesized that the dimensions of sense of coherence would be directly associated with burnout and would also mediate or moderate the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and burnout. The results of the path and moderation analyses conducted confirmed this hypothesis. In particular, the health-sustaining role of sense of coherence was demonstrated through the significant direct associations between comprehensibility and manageability on one hand and emotional exhaustion, as well as depersonalization, on the other hand. In addition, meaningfulness had significant direct associations with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Meaningfulness mediated the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and all burnout subscales, while comprehensibility and manageability only mediated the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. However, comprehensibility and manageability played a moderating role in the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and personal accomplishment. These findings confirm the crucial role of protective factors, such as sense of coherence, and highlights the need for interventions that could strengthen these resources within teachers.

Students’ Emotions During Distance Education: The Role of Personality Factors and Sense of Coherence

“…In earlier studies, SOC has been related to lower levels of COVID-19 pandemic related to stress, anxiety, and depression among students (Li et al, 2021; Misamer et al, 2021; Shorey et al, 2022). In addition, SOC seems to reduce COVID-19 related fears among teachers (Padmanabhanunni et al, 2022) and help to adjust to the post-covid face-to-face education (Li et al, 2021). In the present study, SOC was negatively related to negative emotions and positively related to positive emotions, although the relationships were not statistically significant in both samples.…”

“…One explanation for the relatively weak relationships between SOC and emotions in the present study might be that we measured the total SOC instead of the individual components of SOC, that is, meaningfulness, manageability, and comprehensibility. In earlier studies especially the sense of meaningfulness has been an important predictor of mental health and coping with stress in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic (Misamer et al, 2021; Padmanabhanunni et al, 2022). Unfortunately, the shortness of the SOC measure used in the present study did not allow the use of SOC components separately.…”

“…Earlier studies conducted in educational settings have found that a high Sense of Coherence is related lower COVID-19 related depression, anxiety, and stress among college students (Li et al, 2021; Shorey et al, 2022). Especially the sense of meaningfulness seems to be an important protective factor among students (Misamer et al, 2021) and teachers (Padmanabhanunni et al, 2022). It can be expected that students scoring high in SOC can cope better with the challenges of distance education and isolation due to the pandemic.…”

“…In addition to certain personality factors such as Conscientiousness and emotional stability, resilience seems to improve students’ ability to cope with distance learning during the pandemic (Commodari & La Rosa, 2021; Quintiliani et al, 2022). One crucial resilience-related mitigating factor seems to be the Sense of Coherence (Antonovsky, 1996) among the general public (Barni et al, 2020; Schäfer et al, 2020) and higher education students (Li et al, 2021; Misamer et al, 2021; Shorey et al, 2022) and teachers (Padmanabhanunni et al, 2022). Sense of Coherence (SOC) refers to the holistic and lasting view of life and the world around us “making sense cognitively, instrumentally, and emotionally” (Antonovsky, 1996).…”

The dynamics of Appraisal II: a meta-analysis of the relationship between fortitude and the indices of psychological well-being

“…Globally, people continue to grapple with the impact of COVID-19 (Şimşir et al, 2022). Although successive waves of the pandemic have been associated with increased access to vaccination and personal protective equipment and a greater knowledge of how to treat this disease, a large percentage of people continue to experience adverse mental health outcomes because of the prolonged social isolation, economic restrictions, continued fear of COVID-19, unresolved grief, and difficulties in accessing mental health care (Padmanabhanunni et al, 2022; Pretorius & Padmanabhanunni, 2021a; Veer et al, 2020). Numerous empirical studies (e.g., Aknin et al, 2022) have documented heightened levels of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and posttraumatic stress reactions among the general population.…”