Investigating the Relationship between Various Defense Mechanisms and Coronavirus Anxiety

Abstract

Background & aim: The prevalence of Covid 19 disease has different consequences in economic, social and psychological levels. Anxiety is one of the psychological consequences of this disease. Some individual variables, such as defense mechanisms has important role in anxiety. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to determine and investigate the relationship between the use of various defense mechanisms and the anxiety of corona virus. Methods:The present descriptive correlational study was conducted in 2020. The statistical population of the study was selected from all people aged 20 to 80 years in the southern provinces of the country, including Fars, Khuzestan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari and Isfahan. Sampling method was available and based on the consent of individuals for cooperation. This method was selected due to Covid 19 disease limitations. The anxiety questionnaires and Andrewsm singh and Bond defense mechanisms were completed virtually through social networks. The collected data were analyzed using multiple regression tests. Results:The results revealed that high levels of Coronavirus anxiety (in physical and mental dimensions) were positively correlated with high scores in psychologically disturbed and underdeveloped defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms furthermore predicted 58% of Coronavirus anxiety. Based on beta coefficients, among the three defense mechanisms, the highest positive and statistically significant effect power was not statistically related to the defense mechanism (β=29) and the lowest effect was the psychologically disturbed defense mechanism (β=21) and the defense mechanism was developed. It had a negative predictive power(β= -27). Conclusion:The results disclosed that proper use of defense mechanisms is one of the ways to maintain mental health and in dealing with any crisis, apart from health measures, attention to intrapersonal variables, especially in the field of defense styles and confrontations, can help to develop more complete and indigenous treatment protocols.

How personality functioning relates to psychological distress and behavioral attitudes during the Covid-19 pandemic

“…As demonstrated in prior studies, unlike grandiose narcissism, people with vulnerable narcissism use less adaptive emotion regulation strategies [59]. Altogether, these findings furthermore strengthen the suggestion of taking underlying regulatory abilities more into account in diagnostic and psychotherapeutic settings [30].…”

“…However, psychological adaptation to the pandemic and willingness to comply with the restricting measures do not merely depend on external factors [16][17][18]: For example, studies demonstrated that openness and extraversion acted as resilience factors [1,2,19,20] whereas neuroticism could be seen as a vulnerability factor for experiencing emotional distress during the pandemic [3,[21][22][23][24][25][26]. Targeting the important question of protective factors in these challenging times [27,28], further studies have found that defense mechanisms [21,[29][30][31], coping strategies, and resilience [32][33][34][35][36][37][38] were significantly related to distress during the pandemic. Regarding behavioral aspects such as compliance with the rules of social distancing, studies have focused on how different reactions and attitudes are related to egocentric, unempathetic, and antisocial traits, but come to dissenting conclusions [39][40][41][42].…”