Kwon Soyoung
School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA.
Discov Ment Health. 2025 Aug 2;5(1):114. doi: 10.1007/s44192-025-00263-w.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about widespread mental health challenges. Yet, its mental health impacts vary depending on the coping strategies people adopt to manage stress. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its rapidly changing circumstances, provides an opportune context to examine how different coping behaviors are linked to mental distress. This study explores four coping approaches-social connection, substance use, social media use, and relaxation techniques-to assess how they relate to mental distress over time during the pandemic at both situational (within-person) and habitual (between-person) levels.
Using a hybrid model, this study analyzed longitudinal data from the Understanding American Study (UAS), spanning from April 2020 to June 2021. This approach allowed for differentiating between within-person (how changes in an individual's coping behaviors related to their own mental health over time) and between-person effects (how individuals with different coping behaviors, on average, compare in terms of mental health outcomes).
Adaptive coping behaviors like social connection and relaxation coping were linked to lower mental distress at both within-person and between-person levels, with stronger between-person effects. Substance use and social media use were associated with increased mental distress, suggesting potential risks in their use, especially when these behaviors become habitual. Roughly 20-52.39% of the between-person effects of coping behaviors were explained by sociodemographic characteristics.
By recognizing the value of stable, adaptive coping habits-while also accounting for how situational changes impact well-being-policymakers and practitioners can craft more effective interventions to foster mental resilience during public health crises.
新冠疫情带来了广泛的心理健康挑战。然而，其对心理健康的影响因人们用于应对压力的策略而异。新冠疫情形势迅速变化，为研究不同的应对行为如何与心理困扰相关联提供了契机。本研究探讨了四种应对方式——社交联系、物质使用、社交媒体使用和放松技巧——以评估它们在疫情期间随时间推移在情境（个体内部）和习惯（个体之间）层面上与心理困扰的关系。
本研究采用混合模型，分析了来自“了解美国研究”（UAS）的2020年4月至2021年6月的纵向数据。这种方法能够区分个体内部效应（个体的应对行为随时间的变化如何与他们自己的心理健康相关）和个体之间的效应（平均而言，具有不同应对行为的个体在心理健康结果方面的比较情况）。
社交联系和放松应对等适应性应对行为在个体内部和个体之间层面均与较低的心理困扰相关，个体之间的效应更强。物质使用和社交媒体使用与心理困扰增加有关，表明其使用存在潜在风险，尤其是当这些行为成为习惯时。应对行为的个体之间效应中约20 - 52.39%可由社会人口学特征解释。
通过认识到稳定、适应性应对习惯的价值——同时也考虑情境变化如何影响幸福感——政策制定者和从业者可以制定更有效的干预措施，以在公共卫生危机期间增强心理韧性。
