Help-Seeking as a Maladaptive Coping Style in the Pandemic Scenario: What Worked and What Did Not for Facing This New Stressor

Abstract

The spread of COVID-19 and its related confinement measures were important stressors for a large part of the global population, with massive effects on both physical and mental health. Assessing how individuals coped with such a stressor and which strategies were effective is one of the main challenges for psychological research. In this study, we aimed to investigate the coping strategies implied during the COVID-19 lockdown and their effectiveness. We recruited 374 Italian participants through convenience sampling during the first pandemic wave (April 2020). We administered to our participants an online battery of questionnaires including the Brief COPE, the use of alternative coping strategies proposed by the WHO to help people facing lockdown stress, and a range of psychological symptoms. An exploratory factor analysis conducted on the subscales of the Brief COPE revealed a three-factor structure. Following the previous literature, we named these factors engagement, disengagement, and help-seeking coping styles. In the pandemic scenario, the engagement and disengagement styles revealed the typical correlation patterns with psychological symptoms (i.e., the engagement was adaptive while the disengagement was maladaptive). Instead, contrary to previous literature, help-seeking was positively related to psychological symptoms, suggesting a mismatch between searching for help and finding it during the lockdown. This result supports the importance of evaluating the effectiveness of coping strategies in the pandemic scenario, to give more compelling and precise advice to the population.

Causes of Stress Among Poles and How They Cope With Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…However, more advanced analyzes did not confirm the existence of such a relationship. Thus, although immersion into the world of social relations may have a salutary effect on psychological wellbeing, several studies ( 30 ) show that this effect may be quite opposite. The ambiguity of the obtained results prompts to conduct further research.…”

Consumer (dis)engagement coping profiles using online services in managing health‐related stressors

“…Contributing to this T A B L E 6 K-means clustering, three cluster solutions for perceived helpfulness, cluster centers debate, we found that (dis)engagement coping purposes were integral to one another in the management of linked thoughts and emotions-combined in our hybrid Reappraisal and Distancing scalereflecting the complexity of managing thoughts and emotions related to health-related stressors as found in other service contexts (e.g., Fisher et al, 2021;Zheng & Montargot, 2021). Consumers may, thus, be able to utilize online health services as disengagement coping with more positive value when dealing with thoughts and emotions than previously found (e.g., Buizza et al, 2022;Simione et al, 2022).…”

“…For example, in the case of a breast cancer diagnosis, consumers may use wishful thinking to give themselves a “break” from the current situation (Varni et al, 2012). There is evidence that, in the context of complex services, engagement coping can lead to a reduction in perceived stress and positive psychological wellbeing; whereas disengagement coping can lead to heightened stress levels and psychological distress (Buizza et al, 2022; Simione et al, 2022). However, we should be cautious in making such generalizations.…”

Through the Second Wave: Analysis of the Psychological and Perceptive Changes in the Italian Population during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Comparing Italy to other European countries, we observed that the second wave of the pandemic seemed to have had a lower impact on mental health [16]. Emotional regulation and coping strategies were also protective factors, because they allowed for a reappraisal of the situation, and they modified the intensity and the duration of negative emotions [17,18]. Literature suggested that most people were resilient, but that it is also important to understand which factors came into play to promote habituation [19].…”