“Andrà tutto bene”. The effect of character strengths on psychological distress and self-efficacy during Covid-19 lockdown

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic obliged people around the world to stay home and self-isolate, with a number of negative psychological consequences. This study focuses on the protective role of character strengths in sustaining mental health and self-efficacy during lockdown. Data were collected from 944 Italian respondents (mean age = 37.24 years, SD = 14.50) by means of an online survey investigating character strengths, psychological distress and Covid-19-related self-efficacy one month after lockdown began. Using principal component analysis, four strengths factors were extracted, namely transcendence, interpersonal, openness and restraint. Regression models showed that transcendence strengths had a strong inverse association with psychological distress, and a positive association with self-efficacy. Openness showed an unexpected direct effect on psychological distress. These results provide original evidence of the importance of character strengths, and transcendence strengths in particular, in supporting mental health and self-efficacy in a pandemic and are discussed within the field of positive psychology.

Impact of COVID-19 First Wave on Psychological and Psychosocial Dimensions: A Systematic Review

“…Table 10 shows information about the papers analyzed for the study of compliance and social distancing. We chose to analyze anxiety because research on past epidemics, like SARS, MERS, swine flu and Ebola, revealed a wide range of negative psychosocial impacts, of which anxiety was one of the main outcomes [7,37,[183][184][185][186]. In particular, the quarantine had a huge impact on people: when comparing quarantined versus non-quarantined individuals, the first were more likely to show psychological distress and to have a high prevalence of psychological symptomatology [187].…”

“…Higher levels of stress were associated with: loss of job/education [89,309], having to go out to work [187], having an acquaintance infected with COVID-19 [89,187,247], likelihood of contracting the virus [310], more hygiene behaviors [247,256,310], history of stressful situations [187], medical problems [74,187], risk perception and COVID-19 specific fear/worries [10,74,133,247,259,310], perception of changes in life [74], dysfunctional coping strategies (i.e., denial, substance use, behavioral disengagement) [55,74,245], loneliness [10], perceiving physical symptoms as COVID-19 [215], belief in conspiracy theories [46], low distress tolerance [10], low social support [10,55,276], and decreased sleep quality [271]. Protective factors for stress were associated with: resilience [259,311], greater social connectedness [276], seeking information on COVID-19 [74,89,183], up-to-date and accurate health information [186], functional coping styles (i.e., planning, religion) [74,245], internal locus of control [74], perception o...…”

“…Interestingly, using the internet was positively associated with higher levels of stress [183,226,269,309]. For example, some studies showed that the use of social media (during the pandemic) was associated with symptoms of PTSD [183], because on these platforms there was information available that is not necessarily based on well-founded facts [226]. This could lead to confusion and uncertainty among individuals about the preventive measures taken to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus.…”

“…Regarding the general population, literature identified a number of protective factors towards depression. In particular, resilience [24,133,259], sexual satisfaction [236], pandemic-related prosocial experiences [64], hope and zest [183], positive affect [96,243,351], confidence about overcoming COVID-19 pandemic [157,216,352], living farthest from the epidemic [273], high levels of family support [24,307], credibility of updates [216,247,352], home self-quarantine [269,352], having a garden [245], continuing to work [245], physical exercise [239,307], meaning in life [312], trust in medical staff [216,247], taking prevention measures [168], and optimism [307,312] were associated with lower depressive symptoms.…”

The Impact of General Self-Efficacy on Psychological Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of Posttraumatic Growth and the Moderating Role of Deliberate Rumination

“…However, the relationship between GSE and PR is complex, and the associated mechanisms are not yet clear. During the COVID-19 pandemic, research on GSE and PR usually addressed the psychological state of front-line medical staff and patients (Bidzan et al, 2020;Casali et al, 2020;Zhang J. et al, 2020). College students were mainly the target of descriptive research and analysis of the causes of changes in psychological status and behavior (Alemany-Arrebola et al, 2020;Ao et al, 2020;Chen et al, 2020).…”