Background: A cute stress symptoms (ASSs) are likely to be a common mental health problem in the acute period following the 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) outbreak. To address this risk, substantial social support has been provided to relieve ASSs during the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the effectiveness of these support methods for relieving ASSs has not yet been assessed. Objective: The current study sought to examine the underlying mechanisms by which social support relieves ASSs, among primary and secondary school teachers. Method: A sample of 751 primary and secondary school teachers was selected to answer self-reported questionnaires regarding ASSs, social support, psychological needs, and the sense of control. Results: Structural equation modelling revealed that social support had a non-significant direct relationship with ASSs, and a significant indirect relationship with reduced ASSs via the needs for autonomy and relatedness, and via the paths from three types of psychological needs to the sense of control. Conclusion: These findings suggest that social support can play a relieving role in ASSs when the support satisfies individuals' psychological needs and improves their sense of control. To alleviate ASSs among primary and secondary school teachers, more attention should be paid to satisfying their specific psychological needs and improving their sense of control.

A total of 187 flood victims from Wuhu, a Chinese city affected most severely by a flood during July 2016, were selected to complete self-report measures of traumatic exposure, feelings of safety, fear, posttraumatic negative cognition, and posttraumatic stress disorder. The results found that traumatic exposure could directly predict posttraumatic stress disorder. Besides, traumatic exposure had indirect prediction on posttraumatic stress disorder through three ways, including a one-step path of negative self-cognition, a two-step path from feelings of safety to fear, and a three-step path from feelings of safety to negative self-cognition via fear. Implications and future directions are correspondingly discussed.

We explored the relationships among loneliness, coping style, and adjustment to college from high school. Participants were a sample of 276 college freshmen from a university in China. The measures we used were the Emotional and Social Loneliness Scale, the Coping Style Scale for College Students, and the Academic Adjustment Scale for College Students. We found that loneliness had a direct negative effect on adjustment, and also negatively affected adjustment by activating a negative coping style and suppressing a positive coping style. Both forms of coping style played a mediating role in the relationship between loneliness and adjustment to college. Our findings add to the extant literature on the relationships among loneliness, coping styles, and academic adjustment in China, and have implications for addressing Chinese freshmen's adjustment to college life from a new perspective.

This study examined the mediating role of perceived severity of trauma and rumination in the relationship between traumatic experiences and PTSD, and assessed the moderated role of resilience in this mediating process. Nine hundred and fifty-one adolescents were selected to complete a self-report questionnaire involving rainstorm-related experiences, perceived severity of trauma, rumination, resilience, and PTSD. The results found that rainstorm-related experiences had a positive effect on PTSD by perceived severity of disaster, or by rumination via perceived severity of disaster. Resilience buffered the relationship between rainstorm-related experiences and PTSD, but did not buffer the relation of rainstorm-related experiences to perceived severity of disaster and rumination. These findings indicated that rainstorm-related experiences may have an indirect effect on PTSD via cognitive activities, and these indirect paths were not buffered by resilience. A buffering effect only occurred in the direct paths from rainstorm-related experiences to PTSD.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is prevalent among adolescents following natural disasters, and the trauma experiences represent a critical risk factor for PTSD. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanism of adolescents’ PTSD following trauma experiences remains unclear. Rumination appears to be a mediating factor between trauma experiences and PTSD, and social support may moderate this mediating relationship between trauma experiences, rumination, and PTSD, but few studies have examined these assumptions. Thus, this study aimed to assess the mediating role of rumination and the moderating role of social support in the relationship between rainstorm-related experiences and PTSD among adolescents, following a rainstorm in China. Nine hundred and fifty-one middle school students completed self-report questionnaires, and structural equation modeling was conducted to examine the potential moderated mediation effect. Rainstorm-related experiences had a direct and positive effect on PTSD, and also indirectly influenced PTSD via rumination. Moreover, social support work to buffer the direct effect of rainstorm-related experiences on PTSD, but not the effect of rumination on PTSD. Implications for clinical practice and research are discussed along with study limitations.