Psychological Resilience Factors and Their Association With Weekly Stressor Reactivity During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Europe: Prospective Longitudinal Study

Sophie A Bögemann; Lara M C Puhlmann; Carolin Wackerhagen; Matthias Zerban; Antje Riepenhausen; Göran Köber; Kenneth S L Yuen; Shakoor Pooseh; Marta A Marciniak; Zala Reppmann; Aleksandra Uściƚko; Jeroen Weermeijer; Dionne B Lenferink; Julian Mituniewicz; Natalia Robak; Nina C Donner; Merijn Mestdagh; Stijn Verdonck; Rolf van Dick; Birgit Kleim; Klaus Lieb; Judith M C van Leeuwen; Dorota Kobylińska; Inez Myin-Germeys; Henrik Walter; Oliver Tüscher; Erno J Hermans; Ilya M Veer; Raffael Kalisch

doi:10.2196/46518

Psychological Resilience Factors and Their Association With Weekly Stressor Reactivity During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Europe: Prospective Longitudinal Study

JMIR Ment Health. 2023 Oct 17:10:e46518. doi: 10.2196/46518.

Authors

Sophie A Bögemann^#¹, Lara M C Puhlmann^#^{2

3}, Carolin Wackerhagen^#⁴, Matthias Zerban^#⁵, Antje Riepenhausen^{4

6}, Göran Köber^{7

8}, Kenneth S L Yuen^{2

5}, Shakoor Pooseh⁸, Marta A Marciniak^{9

10}, Zala Reppmann⁴, Aleksandra Uściƚko¹¹, Jeroen Weermeijer¹², Dionne B Lenferink¹, Julian Mituniewicz¹¹, Natalia Robak¹³, Nina C Donner¹⁴, Merijn Mestdagh¹⁵, Stijn Verdonck¹⁵, Rolf van Dick¹⁶, Birgit Kleim^{9

10}, Klaus Lieb^{2

17}, Judith M C van Leeuwen¹, Dorota Kobylińska^#¹¹, Inez Myin-Germeys^#¹², Henrik Walter^#^{4

6}, Oliver Tüscher^#^{2

17

18}, Erno J Hermans^#¹, Ilya M Veer^#^{4

19}, Raffael Kalisch^#^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
² Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (LIR), Mainz, Germany.
³ Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
⁴ Research Division of Mind and Brain, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Campus Mitte, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
⁵ Neuroimaging Center (NIC), Focus Program Translational Neuroscience (FTN), Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center, Mainz, Germany.
⁶ Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Faculty of Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
⁷ Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics, Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
⁸ Freiburg Center for Data Analysis and Modelling, Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
⁹ Division of Experimental Psychopathology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁰ Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Psychiatric University Hospital (PUK), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹¹ Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
¹² Center for Contextual Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
¹³ College of Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
¹⁴ Concentris Research Management GmbH, Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany.
¹⁵ Research Group of Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
¹⁶ Institute of Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
¹⁷ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center, Mainz, Germany.
¹⁸ Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB), Mainz, Germany.
¹⁹ Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 37847551
PMCID: PMC10618882
DOI: 10.2196/46518

Abstract

Background: Cross-sectional relationships between psychosocial resilience factors (RFs) and resilience, operationalized as the outcome of low mental health reactivity to stressor exposure (low "stressor reactivity" [SR]), were reported during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Objective: Extending these findings, we here examined prospective relationships and weekly dynamics between the same RFs and SR in a longitudinal sample during the aftermath of the first wave in several European countries.

Methods: Over 5 weeks of app-based assessments, participants reported weekly stressor exposure, mental health problems, RFs, and demographic data in 1 of 6 different languages. As (partly) preregistered, hypotheses were tested cross-sectionally at baseline (N=558), and longitudinally (n=200), using mixed effects models and mediation analyses.

Results: RFs at baseline, including positive appraisal style (PAS), optimism (OPT), general self-efficacy (GSE), perceived good stress recovery (REC), and perceived social support (PSS), were negatively associated with SR scores, not only cross-sectionally (baseline SR scores; all P<.001) but also prospectively (average SR scores across subsequent weeks; positive appraisal (PA), P=.008; OPT, P<.001; GSE, P=.01; REC, P<.001; and PSS, P=.002). In both associations, PAS mediated the effects of PSS on SR (cross-sectionally: 95% CI -0.064 to -0.013; prospectively: 95% CI -0.074 to -0.0008). In the analyses of weekly RF-SR dynamics, the RFs PA of stressors generally and specifically related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and GSE were negatively associated with SR in a contemporaneous fashion (PA, P<.001; PAC,P=.03; and GSE, P<.001), but not in a lagged fashion (PA, P=.36; PAC, P=.52; and GSE, P=.06).

Conclusions: We identified psychological RFs that prospectively predict resilience and cofluctuate with weekly SR within individuals. These prospective results endorse that the previously reported RF-SR associations do not exclusively reflect mood congruency or other temporal bias effects. We further confirm the important role of PA in resilience.

Keywords: COVID-19; mental health; pandemic; positive appraisal; resilience; stressor reactivity.

©Sophie A Bögemann, Lara M C Puhlmann, Carolin Wackerhagen, Matthias Zerban, Antje Riepenhausen, Göran Köber, Kenneth S L Yuen, Shakoor Pooseh, Marta A Marciniak, Zala Reppmann, Aleksandra Uściƚko, Jeroen Weermeijer, Dionne B Lenferink, Julian Mituniewicz, Natalia Robak, Nina C Donner, Merijn Mestdagh, Stijn Verdonck, Rolf van Dick, Birgit Kleim, Klaus Lieb, Judith M C van Leeuwen, Dorota Kobylińska, Inez Myin-Germeys, Henrik Walter, Oliver Tüscher, Erno J Hermans, Ilya M Veer, Raffael Kalisch. Originally published in JMIR Mental Health (https://mental.jmir.org), 17.10.2023.