Abstract
COVID-19 is a new type of trauma that has never been conceptually or empirically analyzed in our discipline. This study aimed to investigate the impact of COVID-19 as traumatic stress on mental health after controlling for individuals’ previous stressors and traumas. We utilized a sample of (N = 1374) adults from seven Arab countries. We used an anonymous online questionnaire that included measures for COVID-19 traumatic stress, posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and cumulative stressors and traumas. We conducted hierarchical multiple regression, with posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety as dependent variables. In the first step, in each analysis, we entered the country, gender, age, religion, education, and income as independent variables (Kira, Traumatology 7(2):73–86, 2001; Kira, Torture, 14:38–44, 2004; Kira, Traumatology, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1037/trm0000305). In the second step, we entered cumulative stressors and traumas as an independent variable. In the third step, we entered either COVID-19 traumatic stressors or one of its subtypes (fears of infection, economic, and lockdown) as an independent variable. Finally, we conducted structural equation modeling with PTSD, depression, and anxiety as predictors of the latent variable mental health and COVID-19 as the independent variable. Results indicated that COVID-19 traumatic stressors, and each of its three subtypes, were unique predictors of PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Thus, COVID-19 is a new type of traumatic stress that has serious mental health effects.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11469-021-00577-0.
Highlights
The rapid global spread of COVID-19 has wide-ranging effects on mental health, especially for those with a pre-existing mental disorder (Campion et al, 2020)
The eruption and unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic is a chance to advance our understanding of pandemics as traumatic stress and try to fill this gap in trauma research and study pandemics’ effects on mental health
Research suggests that when a traumatic experience is ongoing, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms become more significant and severe (e.g., Goral et al, 2017)
Summary
The rapid global spread of COVID-19 has wide-ranging effects on mental health, especially for those with a pre-existing mental disorder (Campion et al, 2020). Fighting and mitigating the (COVID 19) virus (unlike other viruses and most epidemics that have well-known treatments and vaccines) depends on the further advance of scientific knowledge (e.g., developing effective vaccines and treatments) and the diligence of policy and decision-making, effective planning, and accepting and dealing with its real risks Another factor that makes COVID-19 a unique trauma type is that it is a continuous ongoing traumatic stress. It would most accurately be characterized as a type III trauma (ongoing), which has a greater likelihood of being experienced as more severe (e.g., Kira, 2021; Kira et al, 2008; Kira, Ashby, et al, 2013a). Type III, the most severe, is the continuous/ongoing traumatic stress that can present itself in different subtypes and trajectories. The stressor condition in PTSD criterion “A” typically happened in the past
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