Fear of COVID and Trait Anxiety: Mediation of Resilience in University Students

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Marina Pereira Gonçalves
Leogildo Alves Freires
Josefa Eugenia Tenório Tavares
Roosevelt Vilar
Valdiney Veloso Gouveia

Abstract

The current research aimed to assess the effect of the trait anxiety on fear of Covid-19 mediated by resilience. For that, we counted on a convenience sample of 261 university students from Brazil. Participants completed a survey composed by the Fear of Covid-19 Scale (FC-19S), the Brief Resilience Scale, the Trait Anxiety Inventory, and demographic questions. Results from a simple mediation with 5000 bootstrap simulations supported the hypothesis that resilience mediates the link between the trait anxiety and fear of Covid-19 (β = .14; 95% C.I. = .027, .254). It was observed that resilience mediated around 35% of the link between the trait anxiety and fear of Covid-19. In sum, we concluded that resilience shows an important role for the maintenance of people’s mental health, which is especially relevant in troubled times like the pandemic.

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ESPECIAL - Covid-19: Impacto psicológico em indivíduos, família e sociedade

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