Examining factors for psychological resilience during COVID-19 pandemic : the role of demographics, IES, HSCL and RSA subscales

• Main Author: Lee, Jovin Jie Ning
• Other Authors: Gianluca Esposito
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148150
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of many and heightened the risk for mental vulnerability. While resilience serves as an important buffer against pandemic-related stressors, it appears that possible factors for resilience have differential weighted contributions, depending on the population sampled, model used and context. Moreover, given the multi factorial nature of resilience, a comprehensive study needs to be done to identify crucial factors that are situational and context-specific. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the magnitude of contribution by various factors for psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. One hundred and sixty-eight participants were recruited to complete a survey comprising of (1) Impacts of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), (2) Resilience for Adults Scale (RSA), (3) Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 25 (CD-RISC 25), and (4) Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25), including demographics. An exploratory analysis employing Lasso regression and recursive partitioning was performed to assess the contribution of demographic factors, subscale factors of IES, RSA and HSCL to resilience, as measured by CD-RISC. Results delineated an array of contributing and non-contributing factors in hierarchical order, with constructs like personal strengths as most critical for resilience. Their contributions to resilience are discussed in this report. Such findings have implications for informing policymakers and relevant authorities to attend to and support these crucial factors during the time of pandemic as a first-aid psychological intervention to distress. In turn, bolstering resilience within the community would serve to buffer and mitigate pandemic-related distress and psychological impacts.