Americans’ distress early in the COVID-19 pandemic: Protective resources and coping strategies.

Abstract

Objective:The rapid emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States has dramatically altered daily life and taken a toll on Americans' physical, mental, social, and financial well-being. Based on previous widespread disasters, future high prevalence of short-and long-term adverse mental health consequences are anticipated. Studies of COVID-19 outside the United States indicated moderately high levels of distress, but we have little information regarding Americans' distress nor the factors associated with relative distress or adjustment during this unprecedented time. This study represents the first national view of Americans' distress during the massive disruption of COVID-19 and identifies levels of stress exposure, protective psychosocial resources, and coping strategies. Method: Data were collected April 7-9, 2020 from an online platform, using best practices for ensuring high-quality data; 1,015 completed respondents are included ([53.9%] women; average age ϭ 38.9 years; mostly White [82.4%] and non-Hispanic [91.5%]). Respondents' locations ranged across the United States, from 18.5% in the Northeast to 37.8% in the South. Results: Fairly high levels of stress exposure and peritraumatic and general distress (depression, anxiety, and stress) were reported. Emotion regulation skills along with active and distraction coping emerged as the strongest predictors of lower distress levels. Conclusions: These results identify potential targets for online mental health interventions-focusing on engaging in adaptive emotion regulation and coping (e.g., through telehealth mental health first aid)-during the pandemic to offset the likely rise in distress over the months ahead. Clinical Impact StatementThese findings on stress exposure and distress of Americans early in the pandemic highlight psychosocial resources and coping strategies potentially useful to interventionists seeking to mitigate the immediate adverse mental health effects of the pandemic and to potentially dampen long-term sequelae. This information may also be useful to policymakers preparing for the demands of increased mental health services in the months and years ahead.

Development and Validation of the Robust - Pandemic Coping Scale (R-PCS)

“…In Table 1, we report some examples of studies of coping strategies that can be coded according to this classification. Some studies have recently examined how adults coped during the pandemics, exploring the links between coping strategies and some indicators of positive psychological functioning and/or psychopathological symptoms (Fullana et al, 2020;Wakashima et al, 2020;Bakker and van Wingerden, 2021;Park et al, 2021;Shamblaw et al, 2021). Shamblaw et al (2021) explored adaptive strategies in a sample of American adults and found that a variety of strategies, such as active coping, positive reframing, planning, acceptance, emotional support, and the use of informational support was associated with lower levels of depression and higher levels of quality of life.…”

“…However, being relatively cheap to implement and easy to be adapted to many different contexts, self-report instruments are still the most commonly used tools for accessing individuals' inner worlds. Most of the published studies for assessing coping strategies related to COVID-19 used self-report questionnaires (e.g., Fullana et al, 2020;Wakashima et al, 2020;Bakker and van Wingerden, 2021;Park et al, 2021;Shamblaw et al, 2021) and only a few utilized open-ended questions with content analysis (e.g., Son et al, 2020;Waselewski et al, 2020). Generally, researchers who studied disaster-related coping strategies did not develop specific measures focused on disasters.…”

“…Of the strategies they examined, they found that the most beneficial was positive reframing. In another study involving Americans, skills for regulating emotions, active coping, and distraction were significant predictors of a lower level of distress; while social support seemed less effective ( Park et al, 2021 ). Other studies have focused on correlates of behavioral coping.…”

Lay Evaluations of Restraints and Prohibitions During the 1st Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Lithuania

“…Pasaulinė COVID-19 pandemija yra viena iš didžiausių mūsų laikų sveikatos apsaugos krizių, kuri vienu ar kitu būdu paveikė beveik kiekvieną žmogų. Dėl pandemijos sukeltos krizės politikai, sveikatos apsaugos darbuotojai, mokslininkai, verslininkai ir kiti susidūrė su visiškai naujais iššūkiais (pvz., didžiuliu situacijos neapibrėžtumu, informacijos trūkumu, taikomu karantinu, ekonominėmis problemomis, poveikiu žmonių fizinei, psichinei, socialinei ir finansinei gerovei) (Daumann, Follert, 2020;Nielsen, Levkovich, 2020;Park et al, 2021).…”

“…Nuo COVID-19 pandemijos pradžios praėjo santykinai nedaug laiko, tačiau tyrėjai jau skyrė nemažai pastangų įvairioms jos sukeltoms problemoms nagrinėti: a) sprendimų priėmimui neapibrėžtumo ir informacijos trūkumo sąlygomis (pvz., kaip reaguoti į staiga kilusią grėsmę žmonių sveikatai, kaip sumažinti koronaviruso plitimą, patiriamus ekonominius nuostolius ir pan.) (Comfort et al, 2020;Gleißner et al, 2021;Pappas, Glyptou, 2021;Sun et al, 2020); b) pandemijos sukeltiems psichologiniams padariniams (patiriamam stresui, nerimui, baimei, depresijai, sumažėjusiai subjektyviai gyvenimo kokybei arba gerovei), taip pat taikomiems įveikos būdams ir jų efektyvumui (Nielsen, Levkovich, 2020;Park et al, 2021;Shamblaw et al, 2021;Zacher, Rudolph, 2021); c) impulsyviam pirkimui pandemijos metu (Ahmed et al, 2020;Brizi, Biraglia, 2021;Laato et al, 2020;Naeem, 2021); d) žmonių ketinimui skiepytis arba skiepyti savo vaikus nuo koronaviruso, taip pat tokio ketinimo veiksniams (Neumann-Böhme et al, 2020;Goldman et al, 2020;Loomba et al, 2021;Reiter et al, 2020) ir pan.…”