Positivity explains how COVID-19 perceived risk increases death distress and reduces happiness

Abstract

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has produced an unprecedented impact on all aspects of life, including mental outcomes like death distress. This study examined the mediating effect of positivity on the association between COVID-19 related perceived risk, death distress, and happiness. Participants were 3109 Turkish adults (Mean age = 38.64 ± 10.40) who completed online measures of perceived risk, positivity, death distress, and happiness during the pandemic. Results showed that perceived risk had a significant direct effect on positivity, death distress, and happiness. Positivity had a significant direct effect on death distress and happiness. Mediation analysis indicated that positivity mediated the effect of perceived risk on death distress and happiness. Results suggest that positivity is an important aspect of developing strength-based preventions and interventions aiming to reduce psychological distress and improve happiness.

Perceived Stress Due COVID-19 Pandemic Among Employed Professional Teachers

“…Significantly higher scores of stress were also observed among those who perceived increased susceptibility to the COVID-19 (Limcaoco et al, 2020). Correspondingly, COVID-19 perceived risk was found to have a significant direct effect on death distress among Turkish adults (Yıldırım y Güler, 2021). It is also significant to note that the result of the present study did not identify a significant difference in the stress levels between the presence or absence of COVID-19 case near the participant's residence.…”

Meaning in Life, Religious Coping, and Loneliness During the Coronavirus Health Crisis in Turkey

“…This deadly disease is not only causing deaths of millions of people across the globe, but also leading to adverse psychological outcomes for infected people and healthy individuals. Although certain levels of anxiety and stress are natural responses to stressful situations (Roy et al 2020 ), higher risk of infection, fear, and anxiety corresponding to the disease can cause negative mental health outcomes both at an individual and societal levels (Ahorsu et al 2020 ; Arslan et al 2020a , b , c , d ; Burke and Arslan 2020 ; Yıldırım and Güler 2020 ).…”

Perceived Stress Due to COVID-19 Pandemic Among Employed Professional Teachers

“…However, more than ever, recent studies reported an increased level of stress compared to levels before the pandemic (di Fronso et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2020). To add to this, the pandemic is also confronting the educational sector worldwide with a paradigm shift in teaching and learning (Guillasper et al, 2020;Mondol y Mohiuddin, 2020;Moralista y Oducado) and teachers are faced with a wide array of extremely challenging conditions in coping with these changes (Reimer y Schleicher, 2020). Previous studies regarding stress and mental health consequences during epidemics and outbreaks in recent times have also been reported in the literature (Zhang & Ma, 2020;di Fronso et al, 2020).…”