Author:
Dell’Acqua Carola,Mura Francesca,Messerotti Benvenuti Simone,Patron Elisabetta,Palomba Daniela
Abstract
AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic is a unique period of stress that, in some cases, led to post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSSs). Emotion regulation strategies are known to modulate the emotional response to stressful events. Expressive suppression (ES) is a maladaptive strategy related to the exacerbation of the physiological stress response. Heart rate variability (HRV), an index of cardiac autonomic balance strictly related to ES, was also shown to predict PTSSs. This was the first study to investigate whether the pre-pandemic ES use and resting-state HRV predicted pandemic-related PTSSs. Before the pandemic, 83 (58 females) university students completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), self-report measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms, and a three-minute resting-state electrocardiogram recording. After 12 months, 61 (45 females) participants completed a self-report measure of pandemic-related PTSSs and repeated the self-report psychological measures. Pre-pandemic anxiety symptoms prospectively predicted greater PTSSs. Moreover, a significant interaction between HRV and ES in predicting PTSSs emerged, whereby those who had higher levels of ES and reduced HRV showed higher PTSSs. These findings suggest that an integrated assessment of HRV and ES might be useful for identifying individuals who are more vulnerable to the development of PTSSs during crises.
Funder
Università degli Studi di Padova
Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Reference101 articles.
1. World Health Organization. Coronavirus Disease (COVID-2019) Situation Reports. Consulted on 1st April 2020. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports/
2. Nelson, B. W., Pettitt, A., Flannery, J. E. & Allen, N. B. Rapid assessment of psychological and epidemiological correlates of COVID-19 concern, financial strain, and health-related behavior change in a large online sample. PLoS ONE 15, e0241990. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241990 (2020).
3. Brooks, S. K. et al. The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: Rapid review of the evidence. The Lancet 395, 912–920. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30460-8 (2020).
4. Cooke, J. E., Eirich, R., Racine, N. & Madigan, S. Prevalence of posttraumatic and general psychological stress during COVID-19: A rapid review and meta-analysis. Psychiatr. Res. 292, 113347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113347 (2020).
5. Kalaitzaki, E. A., Tsouvelas, G., Tamiolaki, A. & Konstantakopoulos, G. Post-traumatic stress symptoms during the first and second COVID-19 lockdown in Greece: Rates, risk, and protective factors. Int. J. Ment. Health Nurs. 31, 153–166. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12945 (2022).
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献