Buffering traumatic reactions to COVID-19: Mindfulness moderates the relationship between the severity of the pandemic and posttraumatic stress symptoms.

ABSTRACT

[Correction Notice An Erratum for this article was reported online in Psychological Trauma Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy on Sep 15 2022 (see record 2023-01896-001). In the original article, the first affiliation was incorrectly listed as "Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Beijing Normal University" and was corrected to read "Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University." All versions of this article have been corrected.] Objective: As an international public health emergency panic, Corona Virus Disease-19 (COVID-19) has caused substantial impacts on economic and daily life. The public were at high risk of mental health problems and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). This study aimed to evaluate the association between objective/subjective severity of COVID-19 pandemic and PTSS, and explore the moderating role of mindfulness. METHOD: Using longitudinal and 7-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) designs, we gathered data from 109 college students who were home-quarantined to examined study hypotheses. In the EMA phase, participants completed questionnaires measuring subjective severity, mindfulness and PTSS three times per day. Objective severity was indicated using the daily new confirmed cases. Then participants completed a follow-up measure of PTSS 2 months later, when the epidemic initially became stable. RESULTS: The results of structural equation modeling showed that state mindfulness moderated the relationship between subjectivity severity of COVID-19 and PTSS. Specifically, the association between subjective severity of COVID-19 and PTSS was positive at the low level of state mindfulness, and negative at the high level of state mindfulness. Trait mindfulness did not moderate the relationship between objectivity severity of COVID-19 and PTSS. CONCLUSION: Mindfulness-based interventions can be used as preventive mental health education to the daily lives of the general public, and to deal with unpredictable crisis events. Implications of this study are drawn for theory, practice, and research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).