ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an adverse effect on anxiety and depression symptoms and disorders in the United States and worldwide. As such, there is considerable interest in better understanding the relationship between COVID-19 and anxiety and depressive disorders. Although individual differences in perceived stress have shown to be related to anxiety and depression in non-COVID-19 work, research has not examined potential factors underlying this relation in the context of COVID-19. Fatigue severity may be a promising mechanistic construct for perceived stress and anxiety and depression relations, as some work has found that perceived stress may predict elevated fatigue symptoms. As such, the current study sought to examine the potential explanatory role of fatigue severity in the relation between COVID-19 specific perceived stress and depression, anxiety, and panic symptoms among 563 adults (41.9% female, M_age = 38.26 years, SD = 12.15). Results suggested that COVID-19 perceived stress, via fatigue severity, significantly predicted depression, anxiety, and panic symptoms. These results provide initial empirical support for the role of fatigue severity in the relation between COVID-19 perceived stress and depression, anxiety, and panic symptoms. Future work would benefit from using longitudinal data to evaluate the current model.

摘要

COVID-19 大流行对美国和全世界的焦虑和抑郁症状和障碍产生了不利影响。因此，人们对更好地了解 COVID-19 与焦虑症和抑郁症之间的关系非常感兴趣。尽管在非 COVID-19 的工作中，感知压力的个体差异已被证明与焦虑和抑郁有关，但研究并未在 COVID-19 的背景下检查这种关系背后的潜在因素。疲劳严重程度可能是感知压力以及焦虑和抑郁关系的一个有希望的机制构造，因为一些工作发现感知压力可能预测疲劳症状升高。因此，M_年龄 =  38.26 岁，SD  = 12.15）。结果表明，COVID-19 通过疲劳严重程度感知压力，显着预测抑郁、焦虑和恐慌症状。这些结果为疲劳严重程度在 COVID-19 感知压力与抑郁、焦虑和恐慌症状之间的关系中的作用提供了初步的经验支持。未来的工作将受益于使用纵向数据来评估当前模型。