Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London, UK.
Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2021 Jun;279:113958. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113958. Epub 2021 Apr 22.
The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health is well evidenced. However, there is little research on how individuals' coping strategies were related to changes in mental health over time.
The current study used data from the COVID-19 Social Study in the United Kingdom (N = 26,505) to explore whether coping strategies (problem-focused, emotion-focused, avoidant, and socially-supportive) were associated with (i) better mental health as lockdown was introduced, and (ii) faster recovery over time.
People with greater use of problem-focused, avoidant, and supportive coping displayed more mental health symptoms, while greater use of emotion-focused coping was associated with fewer mental health symptoms. Symptoms decreased over time for all coping strategies, but only socially-supportive coping was associated with a faster decrease in anxiety and depressive symptoms, indicating a potential protective effect of social support on psychological distress.
Problem-, avoidant- and emotion-focused coping strategies were not associated with faster improvements in mental health. Suggesting the adoption of one of these coping styles in itself is not necessarily a driver of improvements in mental health; rather, specific attributes of the behaviours expressed as part of this coping style appear to be important in and of themselves.
新冠疫情对心理健康的负面影响已得到充分证实。然而，关于个体的应对策略如何随时间变化与心理健康变化相关的研究甚少。
本研究使用了来自英国新冠疫情社会研究的数据（N=26505），旨在探讨应对策略（问题聚焦型、情绪聚焦型、回避型和社会支持型）是否与（i）封锁期间心理健康状况的改善有关，以及（ii）随时间的恢复速度有关。
更多地使用问题聚焦型、回避型和支持型应对策略的人表现出更多的心理健康症状，而更多地使用情绪聚焦型应对策略与较少的心理健康症状相关。所有应对策略的症状都随时间逐渐减轻，但只有社会支持型应对策略与焦虑和抑郁症状的更快减轻相关，表明社会支持对心理困扰可能具有保护作用。
问题聚焦型、回避型和情绪聚焦型应对策略与心理健康的更快改善无关。这表明采用这些应对方式本身并不一定是心理健康改善的驱动因素；相反，作为这种应对方式的一部分表现出来的行为的特定属性本身似乎很重要。
