THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND MENTAL HEALTH: EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SUPPORT AND SELF-REGULATION

ABSTRACT

Social support has been widely associated with various morbidity and mortality. How does social support availability help youths cope with the global pandemic of Covid-19 and maintain their mental well-being? Utilizing data from a UK national birth cohort, namely the Millennium Cohort Study, this research investigated the joint role of social support availability and self-regulation against such major life stressors, inclusding G × E mechanisms. Results from 4095 cohort members (399 males (47.20%) and 2602 females (63.54%), others refused to report) suggested that social support availability at the outburst of Covid-19 pandemic, as well as age 7 emotional self-regulation (rated by cohort members' parents) contributes to youths' better mental health (viz., mental well-being and non-specific psychological distress) shortly after the outburst of Covid-19 (;B;s > 0.072, ps < .018). Most importantly, age 7 cognitive self-regulation and social support availability jointly predicted better their well-being 4 months later after the local outbursts of pandemic (for mental well-being, B = 0.309, p = .017, 95% CI = [0.056, 0.562];and for non-specific psychological distress, B =-0.299, p = .043, 95% CI = [-0.587,-0.011]). Johnson-Neyman plots (false discovery rate limited) suggested that it was those high but not low in cognitive self-regulation that benefited more from the perceived social support availability. Within the ranges of significance (81.19% for mental well-being and 80.94% for non-specific psychological well-being), social support availability positively predicted mental health and such effect increased gradually as the increase of age 7 cognitive self-regulation. Findings filled in the research gap such that social support and self-regulation have been investigated separately as two coping mechanisms, by revealing that self-regulation (i.e., internal resources) determines the utility of social support availability (i.e., external resources). Findings here inspired new research questions for the field, such as whether relevant developmental trajectories of self-regulation and social support might intertwin to cast on health trajectories, and whether these processes are subject to potential G × E interactions such as the exposure to childhood adversity or relevant genetic risks. Models to examine these hypotheses will be discussed.