Objective This study explored risk and resilience factors of mental health functioning during the coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic. Methods A sample of 467 adults ( M age = 33.14, 63.6% female) reported on mental health (depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], and somatic symptoms), demands and impacts of COVID‐19, resources (e.g., social support, health care access), demographics, and psychosocial resilience factors. Results Depression, anxiety, and PTSD rates were 44%, 36%, and 23%, respectively. Supervised machine learning models identified psychosocial factors as the primary significant predictors across outcomes. Greater trauma coping self‐efficacy and forward‐focused coping, but not trauma‐focused coping, were associated with better mental health. When accounting for psychosocial resilience factors, few external resources and demographic variables emerged as significant predictors. Conclusion With ongoing stressors and traumas, employing coping strategies that emphasize distraction over trauma processing may be warranted. Clinical and community outreach efforts should target trauma coping self‐efficacy to bolster resilience during a pandemic.

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Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has been conceptualized as a potentially traumatic event, although heterogeneity in experience (e.g., isolation) and in type and severity of traumatic stress response (e.g., hygiene hypervigilance) query the applicability of the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnostic construct. Parallels may be drawn to chronic illness and continuous traumatic situations (CTS) literature, which suggests unique symptom presentations that may occur during cumulative, ongoing traumas. Method: Eighty-four adults completed the PTSD Checklist with appended questions evaluating pandemic index events, temporality of intrusive symptoms, self-appraised abnormality, and context dependence of symptoms. Using exploratory latent profile analysis, we modeled the latent structure of traumatic stress response to COVID-19 in order to evaluate possible nuanced patterns of symptoms differentiating PTSD from a transient ongoing trauma response. Results: Two profiles broadly delineated by severity across all variables emerged, suggesting the framework of PTSD is apt when applied to COVID-19. However, secondary analyses revealed subtle signals supporting chronic illness and CTS frameworks. Specifically, some participants who met criteria for PTSD did not endorse index events meeting Criterion A, most endorsed intrusive symptoms related to a present or future threat (versus a past trauma), and 30% reported their symptoms to be context dependent. Conclusion: Results highlight a need for improved assessment and opportunities for treatment modification. Clinical Impact StatementFindings from this study shed light onto those who may be especially at risk for development of traumatic stress during the pandemic by identifying particular events (e.g., death of a loved one) as predictors of increased PTSD. Based on results, this article also provides recommendations on specific ways in which PTSD treatments may need to adapt to help clients make sense of a stress response to the ongoing threat of the pandemic, which is distinct from a posttraumatic response to a past threat.

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Child maltreatment can impact impulsivity and impulse control via disruption of adaptive socialization and neural mechanisms. However, little research has explored the impact that timing of trauma exposure has on domain-specific impulsivity deficits in adulthood. The present study aimed to address this gap by examining how differences in the timing of exposure to child maltreatment confer persistent, specific deficits in impulsivity. The sample consisted of college undergraduate women (N = 168) recruited from a campus in the northeastern United States. Participants completed the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire–Second Revision (JVQ-R2) to retrospectively report child maltreatment between the ages of 0 and 17. The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) impulse control subscale and Urgency–Premeditation–Perseverance–Sensation Seeking—Positive Urgency (UPPS-P) Impulsive Behavior Scale assessed impulse control and impulsivity in adulthood, respectively. A one-way ANOVA revealed impulse control difficulties significantly differed by age at onset of child maltreatment, and those who experienced onset of child maltreatment at 0–5 years old (M = 14.98, SD = 4.28) had significantly higher impulse control difficulties than those whose age of onset of child maltreatment was at 13–17 years old (M = 12.50, SD = 3.97). Age-specific effects were not significant when assessing unique dimensions of impulsivity (e.g., lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, sensation seeking), however, indicating that the relationship between timing of trauma exposure in childhood and impulsivity is domain-specific and not generalizable. Findings provide insight into ways in which age of trauma exposure catalyzes distinct and enduring self-regulatory deficits—with implications for the development of effective, tailored clinical interventions.