Abstract
Scholars and communications practitioners worldwide have sought novel resilience models amid heightened rates of psychological distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined perceived life satisfaction as a determinant of resilience. Additionally, we investigated the assumption that perceived pandemic severity at the country/region level moderates structural relationships within our risk–resilience model. Analyzing more than 34,000 valid samples from 15 countries/regions, we found that (1) perceived life satisfaction alleviated psychological distress across all 15 countries/regions; and (2) country/region-level pandemic severity moderated the relationships among COVID-19 symptom experience, perceived life satisfaction, and psychological distress. The effects of COVID-19 symptom experience and perceived life satisfaction on psychological distress were conditional. We discuss possible mechanisms behind our findings and provide practical implications for mitigating psychological distress during public health crises.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 16541 |
| Journal | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 24 |
| Online published | 9 Dec 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2022 |
Research Keywords
- risk resilience model
- social comparison
- perceived life satisfaction
- country/region-level severity
- COVID-19
Publisher's Copyright Statement
- This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/