Abstract
The worldwide health emergency caused by COVID-19 is a new challenge for humanity which individuals respond to in a diversity of ways. The type of coping people use in such a situation could lead to positive or negative consequences to their health. Our objective was to analyze the use of coping strategies in the general population with attention to sociodemographic variables, and to test the capacity of these strategies for mediating in repercussions on mental health. The 1,160 adults who participated in this study answered the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ-S) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). The data were collected in a CAWI (Computer Aided Web Interviewing). The results suggest that the coping strategies they used the most differed depending on sociodemographic characteristics, such as age, sex and education. Furthermore, two mediation models were estimated for positive and negative coping strategies in the relationship between the presence of COVID-19 near them and mental health. The “negative” coping strategies were found to exert an indirect effect as mediators in the impact that COVID-19 positive cases near them had on their health. The consequences to mental health of the impact of coping with adverse situations should not be underestimated and it is important to design programs to educate the population in coping strategies that promote their health.
Highlights
COVID-19 has led to a worldwide health crisis without precedent
The main objective of this study was to analyze the use of coping strategies in the general population with attention to sociodemographic variables, and to test the capacity of these strategies to mediate in the repercussion on their mental health
Interventions should be performed on levels of individuals to institutions, including coping strategies that are postulated as beneficial for the health, and further, consider that they must be adapted to the confinement situation. These interventions would serve as preventive measures for health problems, helping people to develop a wide repertoire of healthy coping strategies. Adverse situations such as those experienced during the worldwide health emergency caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus cause people to make use of different coping strategies to endure them
Summary
COVID-19 has led to a worldwide health crisis without precedent. Beyond the tensions inherent to the disease itself, the governmental instructions on mass home confinement are a new situation for the Spanish population and generate concern for how people will react, and the repercussions on their mental health this could lead to. Another study by Pérez-Fuentes et al [3] in an adult Spanish population showed that confinement brought negative consequences to their well-being and negative affect increased both perception of threat from COVID-19 and negative. Coping Strategies in the Spanish Population mood, which in turn, increased somatic complaints [4]. Health problems were more frequent in young people and singles [5, 6]
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