Predicting Role of Resilience and Meaning in Life in Perceived Stress of Frontline Health Care Workers during COVID-19 Outbreak

This paper investigates the predicting role of resilience and meaning in life on perceived stress of frontline health care workers treating patients with COVID-19. To measure the variables, a set of online questionnaires including Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSS), Meaning of Life Questionnaire (MLQ), and Resilience Questionnaire (CD_RISC) was prepared. Presence of meaning, search for meaning, notion of personal competence, tolerance and trust in intuition, acceptance and secure relationships, control, and spiritual influences were examined as predictors of perceived stress. Several frontline health care workers were included in the final study. To analyze the data, regression analysis method was used with SPSS-20 software. The results showed that: 1) the regression model of resilience and the presence of meaning in the life of health care workers on their perceived stress was significant (F (6,229)=45.14, p<0.0001); 2) the predictive variables, in total, could explain 53% of the variance of perceived stress; 3) perceived stress correlated negatively with presence of meaning (β = −0.380, p<0.05), with acceptance and secure relationships (β = −0.620, p< 0.05), with control (β = −0.609, p<0.05), and positively correlated with spiritual influences (β = 0.465, p<0.05). Finding and maintaining meaning in life and improving acceptance, secure relationships, and sense of control would reduce perceived stress of frontline health care workers.

How Does Search for Meaning Lead to Presence of Meaning for Korean Army Soldiers? The Mediating Roles of Leisure Crafting and Gratitude

Many studies demonstrate that finding meaning in life reduces stress and promotes physical and psychological well-being. However, extant literature focuses on meaning in life among the general population (e.g., college students or office workers) in their daily lives. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the mechanisms of how individuals living in life-threatening and stressful situations obtain meaning in life, by investigating the mediating roles of leisure crafting and gratitude. A total of 465 Army soldiers from the Republic of Korea (ROK) participated in two-wave surveys with a 2-week interval. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that the direct effects between the search for meaning, presence of meaning, leisure crafting, and gratitude were significant, except for the direct relationship between the search for meaning and the presence of meaning, and between leisure crafting and the presence of meaning. We tested indirect effects using a Monte Carlo approach and found that leisure crafting and gratitude sequentially mediated the relationship between the search for meaning and the presence of meaning. Our findings highlight the importance of the motivation behind searching for meaning, the proactive use of leisure time, and gratitude for individuals in stressful situations and controlled lifestyles. Finally, we discuss the implications and limitations of this research and future research directions.

Role Identity, Dissonance, and Distress among Paramedics

Role identity theory describes the purpose and meaning in life that comes, in part, from occupying social roles. While robustly linked to health and well-being, this may become, however, when an individual is unable to fulfil the perceived requirements of an especially salient role in the way that they believe they should. Amid high rates of mental illness among public safety personnel, we interviewed a purposely selected sample of 21 paramedics from a single service in Ontario, Canada to explore incongruence between an espoused and able-to-enact paramedic role identity. Situated in an interpretivist epistemology, and using successive rounds of thematic analysis, we developed a framework for role identity dissonance wherein chronic, identity-relevant disruptive events cause emotional and psychological distress. While some participants were able to recalibrate their sense of self and understanding of the role, for others, this dissonance was irreconcilable, contributing to disability and lost time from work. In addition to contributing a novel perspective on paramedic mental health and well-being, our work also offers a modest contribution to the theory in using the paramedic context as an example to consider identity disruption through chronic workplace stress.

Affect and psychological well-being in spouses of cancer patients: the mediating role of meaning in life and self-efficacy

The examination of the psychological functioning of cancer patients’ spouses implies that affect and personal resources play an important role in their psychological well-being. This is a consequence of the severe stress caused by the medical conditions of a spouse and of responsibilities related to caregiving. This study aimed to examine the role of affect and purpose-oriented personal resources (meaning in life and self-efficacy) in shaping psychological well-being in the spouses of cancer patients. The participants were 214 spouses of gastrointestinal patients who were either undergoing medical treatment in hospital units or attending scheduled clinic appointments at outpatient medical clinics. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-X), Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWB), Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), and General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) were used. The results indicated that positive affect was positively correlated with meaning in life, self-efficacy, and psychological well-being. In contrast, negative affect was negatively correlated with positive affect, meaning in life, self-efficacy, and psychological well-being. The mediation analyses demonstrated that meaning in life and self-efficacy were mediators between positive and negative affect and psychological well-being. The mediating function of meaning in life and self-efficacy revealed the significant role of personal resources based on purpose and self-motivation in the relationship between affect and psychological well-being. Positive and negative affect can influence motivational processes that enable patients and their families to constructively deal with challenging and illness-related situations. Caregivers and medical staff could take into account the important role of purpose-oriented resources as they affect the functioning of both patients and their families.

Divergent effects of social media use on meaning in life via loneliness and existential isolation during the coronavirus pandemic

Stay-at-home orders issued to combat the growing number of infections during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 had many psychological consequences for people including elevated stress, anxiety, and difficulty maintaining meaning in their lives. The present studies utilized cross-sectional designs and were conducted to better understand how social media usage related to people’s subjective isolation (i.e., social loneliness, emotional loneliness, and existential isolation) and meaning in life (MIL) during the early months of the pandemic within the United States. Study 1 found that general social media use indirectly predicted higher MIL via lower existential isolation and social isolation. Study 2 replicated these patterns and found that social media use also predicted lower MIL via higher emotional loneliness, and that the aforementioned effects occurred with active, but not passive, social media use. Findings suggest social media use may be a viable means to validate one’s experiences (i.e., reduce existential isolation) during the pandemic but may also lead to intensified feelings concerning missing others (i.e., increased emotional loneliness). This research also helps to identify potential divergent effects of social media on MIL and helps to clarify the relationships among varying types of subjective isolation.