Self-care behaviors, drinking, and smoking to cope with psychological distress during COVID-19 among Chinese college students: the role of resilience

Abstract

Objective

College students are vulnerable to psychological distress during COVID-19 due to pandemic-related stressors. In response to psychological distress, college students engage in various coping behaviors, such as self-care behaviors and substance use. The transactional model of stress and coping depicts a cognitive appraisal process in the stress-coping association. Psychological resilience is an essential factor for the cognitive appraisal. This study aimed to investigate the mediation effects of resilience on psycho-behavioral health in response to COVID-19 stressors.

Design

Longitudinal data were collected from 1,225 Chinese college students via web-based anonymous surveys at wave 1 (T1, between Jan 31 and Feb 11, 2020) and wave 2 (T2, between Mar 20 and Apr 3, 2020).

Main Outcome Measures

Participants reported their COVID-19 stressors (T1), resilience (T1), psychological distress (depression and anxiety; T2), and coping behaviors (self-care behaviors, drinking, and smoking; T2). Path analysis was used for data analyses.

Results

Resilience mediated the association between COVID-19 stressors and psychological distress. Resilience together with psychological distress mediated the association of COVID-19 stressors with self-care behaviors or drinking.

Conclusions

Resilience appears to offer protection that promotes psycho-behavioral health in college students in the face of COVID-19 stressors. Interventions for college students should attend to resilience.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• depression
• anxiety
• self-care behaviors
• substance use
• resilience
• college students

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank other team members at Beijing Normal University for their contribution to the data collection and data management. The authors would also want to express their gratitude to all the respondents for their participating in the online survey. The authors greatly appreciate Ms. Miranda Cole’s assistance in proofreading the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

Data availability statement

Data available from the authors upon request.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this manuscript is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under award number 32071076.