Authors: Andrews Carolyn M, Menkes Margo W, Votta Cecilia M, Deldin Patricia J.
Introduction: The Coronavirus pandemic is causing many to experience stressful life events, which are related to the onset or worsening of depressive disorders and anxiety disorders. Emotion regulation plays an important role in responding to stressful life events and in risk for depressive/anxiety symptoms. The current paper examines pandemic- elated negative life events in relation to depressive and anxiety symptoms, and whether difficulties in emotion regulation mediates this relationship.
Methods: Participants (N=307) recruited through Amazon MTurk completed questionnaires assessing pandemicrelated negative life events, difficulties in emotion regulation, and depressive/anxiety symptoms. Participants (N=154) completed depression and anxiety symptom measures again 2 weeks later.
Results: Pandemic-related negative life events were associated with increased concurrent and longitudinal depression and anxiety symptoms. Emotion regulation mediated the relationships between pandemic-related negative life events and baseline depression and anxiety symptoms as well as follow-up symptoms.
Limitations: We did not assess whether participants had previously been diagnosed with a mood or anxiety disorder, so it is unclear whether individuals with these disorders are at an increased risk of worsening symptoms relative to the rest of the population.
Discussion: These findings suggest that individuals experiencing stressful events related to the pandemic are at an increased risk for lasting negative mental health outcomes, and that emotion regulation difficulties are a critical target for intervention for these individuals.
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