Abstract
As previous pandemics, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has direct and indirect effects on mental health and well-being. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether meaning in life mediated the association between coronavirus suffering and satisfaction with life and whether stress-related growth moderated the mediating effect of meaning in life on the association between these variables. Stress-Related Growth Measure (SGM) was also conducted for the purpose of this study. The participants were 402 (66% women) young adults who completed the Suffering Measure During COVID-19, Meaningful Living Measure, Satisfaction With Life Scale, and SGM. The results indicated that the SGM has adequate psychometric properties with unidimensional structure of stress-related growth in the face of adversity. Moderated mediation analysis revealed that coronavirus suffering directly influenced satisfaction with life as well as indirectly by its effect on meaning in life. Additionally, stress-related growth was found as a moderator in the relationship between coronavirus suffering–meaning in life and coronavirus suffering–satisfaction with life. These results suggest that meaning in life mitigates the effect of coronavirus suffering on satisfaction with life, and this mediating effect is moderated by stress-related growth in young adults. While meaning in life helps explain the relationship between coronavirus suffering and satisfaction with life, the stress-related growth functions as a protective factor against the adverse effect of coronavirus experiences.
Highlights
On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the novel coronavirus [coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)] outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (World Health Organization, 2020)
Additional analyses indicated that coronavirus suffering had negative and significant correlations with life satisfaction and meaning in life yet had an insignificant correlation with stressrelated growth
We examined whether meaning in life mediated the effect of coronavirus suffering on life satisfaction and whether stress-related growth moderated this mediating effect on life satisfaction among Turkish young adults (Figure 1)
Summary
On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the novel coronavirus [coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)] outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (World Health Organization, 2020). The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has placed an excessive degree of psychological stress on people around the globe (Arslan et al, 2020b). This pandemic has affected people’s physical and mental health, and people across the globe have to cope with new psychological problems, especially with stress, anxiety, worry, uncertainty, and fear (Arslan, 2020a; Yildirim et al, 2020a,b). Preventive behaviors taken by public health authorities to restrict the spread of disease can aggravate psychological, social, and spiritual suffering, which can escalate a sense of meaningless of life and even loss of faith (Schoenmaekers et al, 2020). Identifying how suffering is associated with well-being and its indicators plays a key role for the protection of mental well-being in times of adversities
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