A decline in perceived social status leads to post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in adults half a year after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic: consideration of the mediation effect of perceived vulnerability to disease.

Background/purpose: In December 2019, Wuhan, Hubei, China firstly reported the existence of the COVID-19 virus. It is crucial to prioritize the psychological well-being of citizens in lockdown cities and make more strides in the academic field of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to prepare for the post-pandemic era. Methods: We took the cognitive-relational theory as our basis and collected Hubei province-level data (N = 3,465) to examine the impact of perceived social status decline on the prevalence of PTSD symptoms, and checked the mediating effect of perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD) during the period of psychological adjustment. Results: Using propensity score matching, we estimate the average treatment effect of perceived social status decline on PTSD level, and we robustly regress the two with weight adjustment generated in matching. We found that more decline in perceived social status is associated with a worse degree of PTSD symptoms, and confirmed PVD's buffering role although the mediating effect was not as high as hypothesized. Conclusion and implications: Our study confirmed the decisive role of subject social status in health prediction compared to traditional socioeconomic measures, which extends the cognitive-relational in examining socioeconomic status and contributes to the dialog on socioeconomic inequality. We also suggested providing more social support at the community level and enhancing individuals' positive understanding to protect mental health.

Pull and Push: The Effect of Social Support and Professional Resilience on the Relationship Between Correctional Officers' Cynicism and Service Impact.

This research examines the protective influences of social support and professional resilience to probation officers' cynicism and service impact simultaneously. Data on psychological characteristics of a sample of 382 forensic social workers in Chinese legal systems were collected. Confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and multiple-group analyses were used in a three-step analysis process to test our research model. Results identified that cynicism was negatively associated with probation officers' service impact, ascertained that social support functioned as an extrinsic pull mediating the relationship between probation officers' cynicism and service impact, and determined that professional resilience served as an intrinsic push moderating the impact of cynicism and social support on service impact, respectively. This research proposed a push and pull mechanism by which probation officers' service impact is increased and their work pressure is alleviated, providing tentative recommendations for the alleviation of probation officers' job pressure and improvement of their service impact.