The Mediating Role of Psychological Distress on the Effect of Self-Efficacy to Academic Resilience of Emerging Adults: Implications for CBT Intervention

Abstract

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many individuals' mental health, including emerging adults. Changes in the environment and the mode of education made students vulnerable to psychological distress. However, there has been little empirical research on psychological distress, academic resilience, and self-efficacy. The study sought to determine the mediating role of psychological distress in the effect of self-efficacy on academic resilience—350 Filipino emerging adults recruited from various Metro Manila colleges and universities. Multi-aspect questionnaires were utilized to assess psychological distress, self-efficacy, and academic resilience. Structural equation modeling was used to explain the relationships, mediation, and causality and test the hypothesized model. SEM revealed that psychological distress mediates self-efficacy and academic resilience; higher self-efficacy leads to higher academic resilience; higher psychological distress leads to lower academic resilience, and higher self-efficacy leads to lower psychological distress. The study's findings have implications for a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Intervention for psychologically distressed students. A proposed individual intervention is recommended for implementation, which mental health practitioners can use to address the variables of the study.