Prudenzi, A, Graham, CD, Rogerson, O orcid.org/0000-0002-6967-587X et al. (1 more author) (Cover date: 2023) Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Exploring the Role of Psychological Flexibility and Stress-related Variables. Psychology and Health: an international journal, 38 (10). pp. 1378-1401. ISSN 0887-0446
Abstract
Objective
Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and the psychological factors associated can help inform subsequent interventions to protect psychological health. In particular, psychological flexibility has been shown to be an important target for intervention. The current study aimed to investigate associations between protective factors (state mindfulness, values and self-compassion) and risk factors (COVID-19 stress, worry and rumination) for mental health during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design
439 participants completed three online surveys during the 1st wave of the pandemic in the UK: Time 1 (April 1–5th 2020), Time 2 (April 15–19th April), Time 3 (May 13–17th 2020).
Main outcome measures
Measures of wellbeing, burnout and life satisfaction.
Results
Psychological health outcome measures were found to be lower (worse) than normative comparison data during the early stages of the UK lockdown, while COVID-19 stress and worry reduced over time. Multilevel models found that higher levels of trait and state measures of psychological flexibility and self-compassion were associated with better psychological health across time points. Higher levels of COVID-19 stress, worry and rumination were also associated with poorer psychological health.
Conclusion
The results showed that mindfulness, values and self-compassion are potential targets for intervention.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. |
Keywords: | COVID-19; psychological flexibility; mental health; stress; worry; rumination |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jan 2022 10:51 |
Last Modified: | 06 Dec 2023 16:05 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/08870446.2021.2020272 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:181822 |