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Abstract :
[en] Background: The current Corona pandemic is not only a threat to physical health. First data from China and Europe indicate that symptoms of anxiety and depression and perceptions of stress rise significantly as a consequence of the pandemic. There are also anecdotal reports of increased domestic violence, divorce, and suicide rates. Hence, the Corona crisis is also a mental health crisis. There is urgent need for knowledge about factors that can protect mental health (resilience factors) in this world-wide crisis, which is different in nature from other crises that have so far been studied in resilience research. Methods: Potential resilience factors, exposure to Corona-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms were assessed online in N=5000 adult Europeans. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results: Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience(p<0.001). The resilience factor PAS also mediated the positive association between perceived social support (PSS) and resilience (p<0.001). In comparison with other resilience factors, positive appraisal specifically of the consequences of the Corona crisis was the single strongest factor. Conclusions: This research identifies modifiable protective factors that can be targeted by public mental health efforts. Future work will have to identify potential group differences in the effectiveness of these resilience factors, for improved prevention planning
