The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Distressed but happy: Health workers and volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Distressed but happy: Health workers and volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic
Distressed but happy: Health workers and volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 outbreak, many people rose to the occasion by engaging in volunteerism and health work. We conducted two nationwide surveys in the United States ( n  = 2931) and China ( n  = 2793) assessing volunteers' and health workers' levels of mental distress and happiness. In spite of data being collected at different phases of the COVID-19 outbreak and across two different cultures, the results converged. Volunteers and health workers reported higher mental distress (e.g., depression, anxiety, somatization) than the comparison group. However, volunteers and health workers also reported more happiness than the comparison group. More importantly, in a follow-up in China ( n  = 1914) one month later, health workers still reported heightened happiness but were no longer more distressed than the comparison group. The changes in distress were partially mediated by happiness at the first time point, pointing to the potential role of happiness in coping with distress. In sum, the emotional landscape of volunteers and health workers was complicated-they experienced higher distress but also higher happiness than comparison groups. Future research would do well to include longer follow-up periods to examine how experiencing happiness during highly stressful situations predicts mental health over time.

Supplementary Information: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40167-021-00100-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

2193-8660
27–42
Mo, Tiantian
4112a871-5059-4807-a616-ae604992bdf4
Layous, Kristin
ad480cc6-aa19-4a1f-9461-262c1348b5b4
Zhou, Xinyue
c4427250-dae3-4d5d-bdce-8339e6fb4f2b
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Mo, Tiantian
4112a871-5059-4807-a616-ae604992bdf4
Layous, Kristin
ad480cc6-aa19-4a1f-9461-262c1348b5b4
Zhou, Xinyue
c4427250-dae3-4d5d-bdce-8339e6fb4f2b
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2

Mo, Tiantian, Layous, Kristin, Zhou, Xinyue and Sedikides, Constantine (2022) Distressed but happy: Health workers and volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Culture and Brain, 10 (1), 27–42. (doi:10.1007/s40167-021-00100-1).

Record type: Article

Abstract

During the COVID-19 outbreak, many people rose to the occasion by engaging in volunteerism and health work. We conducted two nationwide surveys in the United States ( n  = 2931) and China ( n  = 2793) assessing volunteers' and health workers' levels of mental distress and happiness. In spite of data being collected at different phases of the COVID-19 outbreak and across two different cultures, the results converged. Volunteers and health workers reported higher mental distress (e.g., depression, anxiety, somatization) than the comparison group. However, volunteers and health workers also reported more happiness than the comparison group. More importantly, in a follow-up in China ( n  = 1914) one month later, health workers still reported heightened happiness but were no longer more distressed than the comparison group. The changes in distress were partially mediated by happiness at the first time point, pointing to the potential role of happiness in coping with distress. In sum, the emotional landscape of volunteers and health workers was complicated-they experienced higher distress but also higher happiness than comparison groups. Future research would do well to include longer follow-up periods to examine how experiencing happiness during highly stressful situations predicts mental health over time.

Supplementary Information: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40167-021-00100-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Text
Mo et al., 2021, Culture and Brain - Accepted Manuscript
Download (941kB)

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 24 February 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 19 May 2021
Published date: 1 June 2022
Additional Information: © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 448092
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/448092
ISSN: 2193-8660
PURE UUID: dfe329f2-7330-4eca-9b7b-847503fc9365
ORCID for Constantine Sedikides: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4036-889X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 01 Apr 2021 15:58
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 06:27

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Tiantian Mo
Author: Kristin Layous
Author: Xinyue Zhou

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×