Stress Response on Behavioral Response of University Students During the Peak Period of COVID-19

Jun Ren; Honglin Ren; Yueran Bian; Caihong Yang; Huifen Wu; Xiaonan Li; Yan Zhang; Hui Shi

doi:10.5152/alphapsychiatry.2022.21712

Stress Response on Behavioral Response of University Students During the Peak Period of COVID-19

Alpha Psychiatry. 2022 May 1;23(3):113-120. doi: 10.5152/alphapsychiatry.2022.21712. eCollection 2022 May.

Authors

Jun Ren¹, Honglin Ren², Yueran Bian³, Caihong Yang⁴, Huifen Wu³, Xiaonan Li⁵, Yan Zhang³, Hui Shi⁶

Affiliations

¹ Party Committee teacher work department, Mianyang Normal University, Mianyang, China.
² Department of General Education, Wuhan Vocational College of Software and Engineering, Wuhan, China.
³ Department of Educational Science, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China.
⁵ Huazhong University of Science and the University Hospital, Wuhan, China.
⁶ Department of Clinical Psychology, Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to explore the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between stress response and behavioral response and to develop a moderated mediation model with stress management and risk cognition.

Methods: We developed 4 novel questionnaires, namely, stress response questionnaire, behavioral response questionnaire, stress management questionnaire, and risk cognition questionnaire. A total of 5896 university students in China were investigated during the peak period of the coronavirus disease 2019.

Results: The results showed that stress response had a significant negative predictive effect on behavioral response (r = -0.489, P < .001). Moreover, stress management had a partial mediating effect between stress response and behavioral response. Risk cognition plays a moderating effect on the mediation model (β = -0.109, P = .030), and the effect of high-risk cognition is more significant.

Conclusion: During the coronavirus disease 2019 period, improving the risk awareness of university students will help to enhance the buffering effect of stress management on behavioral response and indirectly reduce their behavioral response.

Keywords: COVID-19; behavioral response; moderated mediating model; risk cognition; stress management; stress response.