Fear of COVID-19, death depression and death anxiety: Religious coping as a mediator

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the well-being and mental health of populations worldwide. This study sought to examine whether religious coping mediated the relationship between COVID-19-related fear and death distress. We administered an online survey to 390 adult participants (66.15% females;Mage = 30.85 ± 10.19 years) across Turkey. Participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring the fear they had experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, their levels of religious coping and their levels of death anxiety and depression. Our findings revealed that (a) fear of COVID-19 was associated with positive religious coping, negative religious coping, death anxiety and death distress;(b) negative religious coping was associated with death anxiety and depression and (c) negative religious coping mediated the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and death anxiety and depression. These results highlight the detrimental effect of negative religious coping in increasing the adverse effect of the COVID-19 fear on death depression.

Role of resilience in psychological adjustment and satisfaction with life among undergraduate students in Turkey: A cross-sectional study

Introduction: Cultivation of resilience is shown to reduce mental health problems and improve well-being. The effect of resilience on psychological adjustment problems and satisfaction with life is however not adequately discussed. This study investigated the predictive effect of resilience in psychological adjustment and satisfaction with life among undergraduate students during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a convenience sampling method was utilized to recruit undergraduate students from a public educational institution in Turkey. Psychometric valid tools, such as the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), Brief Psychological Adjustment-6 (BASE-6) and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) were used to measure the primary outcomes of the study. Data were analyzed using the independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and hierarchical multiple regression. Results: Of total 224 undergraduates participated in this study, nearly 74% were males and the mean age of the sample was 21.03±1.66 years. More than half of the participants had average socioeconomic status (53.57%) followed by above-average (40.18%) and below-average (6.25%). The results indicated that males and individuals who had low socioeconomic status reported greater psychological maladjustment problems. Furthermore, the resilience negatively predicted the psychological maladjustment (β =-0.31, p<0.01) and positively predicted satisfaction with life (β = 0.17, p< 0.05) after controlling for age, gender, and perceived socioeconomic status. Discussion: These results shed light on the relationship of resilience with psychological outcomes in terms of satisfaction with life and psychological adjustment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this study point to the potential role of resilience in improving satisfaction with life and psychological adjustment among undergraduate students in Turkey. Additionally, efforts by practitioners and policymakers should be made in developing resilience-building interventions to foster post-traumatic growth among students. Take-home message: The current findings will serve as preliminary evidence to develop innovative preventative intervention programs aiming at reducing psychological adjustment problems and promoting satisfaction with life among undergraduate students in Turkey. © 2022 by the authors.

Prediction of Individuals' Religious Coping Levels in the Coronavirus (Covid-19) Process by Using Artificial Neural Networks

In this study, it is aimed to develop a model that predicts religious coping with the data that include age, gender, marital status, educational status, monthly income, place of residence, occupation, chronic disease status of individuals, number of family members, access to computer and internet, loneliness and the meaning of life during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The study group of this research includes individuals in the 2020 Covid-19 process. The research was carried out on 783 individuals on a random sampling basis. The data were obtained through the demographic information form developed by the researcher. In the study, it was created a prediction model developed by Artificial Neural Networks method, which includes 15 variables including 14 variable inputs and 2 sub-dimensions 1 output. While the development of the model was carried out by using the age, gender, marital status, educational status, monthly income, place of residence, occupation, chronic disease status of the individuals, number of family members, computer and internet access, loneliness and meaning of life, religious coping situations were estimated by the newly developed model. The predicted and observed results obtained were verified and compared. According to the findings, it was seen that the predicted positivenegative religious coping situations were significantly similar to the observed positive-negative religious coping classification.