Correlates of psychological distress among Pakistani adults during the COVID-19 outbreak: parallel and serial mediation analyses

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Ashraf, F, Zareen, G, Nusrat, A, Arif, A and Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, 2021. Correlates of psychological distress among Pakistani adults during the COVID-19 outbreak: parallel and serial mediation analyses. Frontiers in Psychology, 12: 647821. ISSN 1664-1078

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647821

Abstract

Objective:
The global outbreak of COVID-19 has greatly affected individual’s lives around the world and resulted in various negative psychological consequences. During the pandemic, reflection on and attention to COVID-19 may help in dealing with its symptomology but frequent and persistent thoughts about the situation can be unhealthy. The present study examined the direct and indirect associations between obsession concerning COVID-19, psychological distress, life satisfaction, and meaning in life.

Design:
This mediation study presents a primary analysis of normative data collected after the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in Pakistan. Parametric bootstrapping was used to test the mediation models of subjective well-being, the extent of the effect, and meaning in life as parallel and serial mediators concerning the associations between COVID-19 obsession and psychological distress measures.

Setting:
A sample of 1,002 adults (45% men and 55% women) were recruited utilizing an online survey between April to May 2020. They were aged between 19 and 45 years (M = 24.30, SD = 7.29) and normalized on population characteristics.

Results:
Two out of three mediators in parallel mediation fully mediated the relationship between obsession and psychological distress (total effect = 0.443, SE = 0.050, p < 0.0001) illustrating that high-level obsessions were associated with low levels of satisfaction with life and presence of meaning in life and search for meaning in life. Psychological distress is likely to decrease in the presence of a high level of satisfaction with life and meaning. Moreover, satisfaction with life and search for meaning in life significantly mediated the association between COVID-19 obsession (z=-3.507, p < 0.0001 and z = −2.632, p < 0.001 respectively).

Conclusion:
The present study showed that life satisfaction and search for meaning in life may play a significant role in decreasing psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Frontiers in Psychology
Creators:	Ashraf, F., Zareen, G., Nusrat, A., Arif, A. and Griffiths, M.D.
Publisher:	Frontiers Media SA
Date:	31 March 2021
Volume:	12
ISSN:	1664-1078
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647821 DOI 1429370 Other
Rights:	© 2021 Ashraf, Zareen, Nusrat, Arif and Griffiths. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	01 Apr 2021 15:24
Last Modified:	31 May 2021 15:05
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/42654