Psychological Flexibility, coping and wellbeing over time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Creators: name: Woodman, Heather L
Publisher: name: University of Lincoln
Year: 2025
Subjects: C800 - Psychology

description: Within the United Kingdom (UK) and indeed across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic was a naturally occurring global stressor which drastically impacted the mental health and wellbeing of many. With varying approaches across the world to managing the pandemic and restrictive practice common amongst guidance, individuals' ability to cope and process stress was put to the test. The extant literature provides evidence for the association between psychological flexibility and wellbeing, mental health, coping and the impact of stress. The evidence we have to date is largely from cross-sectional analysis and therefore a longitudinal approach to exploring this relationship is needed. Literature suggests that higher levels of psychological flexibility are associated with higher levels of wellbeing, lower levels of distressing mental health symptoms and a lower level of avoidance based coping strategies. The primary aim of this project was to explore the longitudinal relationship between psychological flexibility and wellbeing, depression, anxiety and COVID ?related trauma, using the COVID-19 pandemic as a naturally occurring source of global distress. An additional aim was included to examine the mediating relationship of coping choice when considering the relationship between psychological flexibility and wellbeing. 554 adults from the UK were recruited to participate, completing measures of psychological flexibility (CompACT-8), wellbeing (SWEMWBS), depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), COVID-related trauma (IES-6) and coping style (Brief COPE). These measures were completed over five timepoints across the COVID-19 pandemic. A prospective longitudinal design was implemented with a multi-level model approach taken to data analysis to examine the relationship between psychological flexibility and wellbeing, depression, anxiety and COVID ?related trauma. A multi-level mediation model was also utilised to explore whether the association found between psychological flexibility and wellbeing could be accounted for by different approaches to coping. This multi-level mediation model is discussed within the extended paper. There was a significant positive relationship found between psychological flexibility and wellbeing, with psychological flexibility significantly predicting the variance in wellbeing scores and those higher in psychological flexibility showing higher levels of wellbeing. While a significant negative relationship was found between psychological flexibility and depression, anxiety and COVID-19- related trauma, where those with higher levels of psychological flexibility were found to have lower levels of depression, anxiety and COVID-related trauma. In addition to this psychological flexibility was found to play a buffering role on the relationship between COVID-Worry and wellbeing, with those higher in psychological flexibility showing a decreased negative impact of COVID-Worry on wellbeing. Within the mediation modelling it was found that higher wellbeing in participants who had higher psychological flexibility scores were mediated by a lower prevalence of avoidant coping choices. Given the known malleability of psychological flexibility, and the significant findings within this research and extant literature associating psychological flexibility with better wellbeing and lower distress, psychological flexibility is a suitable focus for future intervention studies. Future research could explore the utility and impact of supporting development of psychological flexibility within stress events to both proactively and reactively support the wellbeing and mental health of the population.