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. 2023 Feb 13;13(2):162.
doi: 10.3390/bs13020162.

Psychological Factors Explaining the COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Mental Health: The Role of Meaning, Beliefs, and Perceptions of Vulnerability and Mortality

Attà Negri  1 , Federica Conte  2 , Cristina L Caldiroli  3 , Robert A Neimeyer  4 , Marco Castiglioni  3
Affiliations

Psychological Factors Explaining the COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Mental Health: The Role of Meaning, Beliefs, and Perceptions of Vulnerability and Mortality

Attà Negri et al. Behav Sci (Basel). .

Abstract

This study tested an expanded version of the explanatory model of the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health proposed by Milman and colleagues. Participants (N = 680) completed an online survey on demographic variables associated with poor pandemic mental health, COVID-19 stressors, mental health symptoms, and pandemic-related psychological processes we hypothesized as mediating mechanisms explaining the negative mental health effects of the COVID-19 stressors. Results indicated that these psychological processes (core belief violation, meaning made of the pandemic, vulnerability, and mortality perception) explained the severity of mental health symptoms to a far greater extent than COVID-19 stressors and demographics combined. In addition, these psychological processes mediated the impact of COVID-19 stressors on all mental health outcomes. Specifically, COVID-19 stressors were associated with increased core belief violation, decreased meaning making, and more intense perceived vulnerability and mortality. In turn, those whose core beliefs were more violated by the pandemic, who made less meaning of the pandemic, and who perceived a more pronounced vulnerability and mortality experienced a worse mental health condition. This study's results suggest some possible ways of intervention in pandemic-like events useful for limiting such impact at the individual, group, social and political levels.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic distress; core belief violation; meaning making; mental health in COVID-19 pandemic; mortality; psychological interventions in COVID-19 pandemic; psychological processes; vulnerability.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Model from Milman et al. [1]: the scheme represents the tested model of direct (c’) and mediated effects (a, b) of pandemic stressors (predictors) on mental health measurements (outcomes). Figure adapted here with permission.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic representation of the multiple mediation models. We fit a separate model for each predictor-outcome pair sharing a significant bivariate correlation. The paths marked a1–4 represent the effects of each predictor on each of the four mediators. The paths marked b1–4 represent the effects of each of the four mediators on each outcome variable. The path marked c’ represents the controlled direct effect of each predictor on each outcome. All effects were estimated by conditioning on relevant confounders.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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