Mental health of Brazilian students during the COVID-19 pandemic: the role of gratitude, optimism, and hope in reducing anxiety

Abstract Objective To investigate the role of optimism, hope, and gratitude as psychosocial factors for healthy development, especially with regard to anxiety in college students in the context of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods This is a quantitative, descriptive cross-sectional study. A sociodemographic questionnaire, the Brazilian Gratitude Scale (Escala Brasileira de Gratidão [B-GRAT]), and the Brazilian versions of an anxiety subscale, the Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R), Hope Index Scale, and BIG-FIVE were administered. Data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, Spearman correlations, and hierarchical linear regression. Results A total of 297 students were assessed. The relationship between gratitude and anxiety became positive in the hierarchical linear analysis, contradicting the initial negative association between these variables according to the Spearman coefficients. This contradiction may be a result of the suppression effect. When gratitude was added to the model, these three variables together accounted for 38% of the variance in anxiety. This indicates that optimism, hope, and gratitude together are significant predictors, although optimism alone accounts for the greater part of the variance in decreased anxiety. Conclusion The data confirm that family and religiosity are protective factors against mental illness, specifically non-adaptive anxiety. Furthermore, developing optimism as a protective factor makes it possible to experience less anxiety while hope has the potential to provide the individual with multiple pathways to healthy development. This study highlights that gratitude plays a dual role in these relationships as it has the potential to be associated with anxious feelings with likely negative outcomes while at the same time it can drive positive psychosocial factors of optimism and hope, decreasing anxiety.

The mental health of Brazilian students during the Covid-19 pandemic: the role of gratitude, optimism, and hope in reducing anxiety.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the role of optimism, hope, and gratitude as psychosocial factors for healthy development, especially with regard to anxiety in college students in the context of COVID-19. METHODS: This is a quantitative and descriptive cross-sectional research. The sociodemographic questionnaire and the Brazilian versions of the anxiety scale B-GRAT, LOT-R, Hope Index, and BIG-FIVE were applied. Data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney correlation, Kruskal-Wallis, Spearman, and hierarchical linear regression. RESULTS: A total of 297 students were assessed. In the hierarchical linear analysis, the relationship of gratitude with anxiety becomes positive, contradicting the negative association of these variables in Spearman's correlation. The contradictions may result from the suppression effect. When gratitude was added to the model, these three variables together accounted for 38% of the variance in anxiety. This indicates that optimism, hope, and gratitude together are significant predictors, but optimism alone accounts for a large part of the variance for decreased anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: The data confirm that family and religiosity are protective factors against mental illness, specifically non-adaptive anxiety. Furthermore, developing optimism as a protective factor makes it possible to experience less anxiety while hope has the potential to provide the individual with multiple pathways to healthy development. This study has highlighted that gratitude plays a dual role in these relationships as it has the potential to be associated with anxious feelings with likely negative outcomes while at the same time it can drive positive psychosocial factors of optimism and hope in decreasing anxiety.