Coping with COVID Stress: Maladaptive and Adaptive Response Styles Predicting College Student Internalizing Symptom Dimensions

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted daily life for undergraduates and introduced new stressors (e.g., campus closures). How individuals respond to stressors can interact with stress to increase disorder risk in both unique and transdiagnostic ways. The current study examined how maladaptive and adaptive stress response styles moderated the perceived severity of COVID-related stressors effect on general and specific internalizing dimensions at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in a combined undergraduate sample across two universities (N = 451) using latent bifactor modeling and LASSO modeling to identify optimal predictors. Results showed that perceived stress severity and maladaptive response styles (not adaptive response styles or interactions between stress and response styles) were associated with both common and specific internalizing dimensions. Results suggest additive associations of stress severity and maladaptive coping with internalizing symptoms during the pandemic’s beginning, and provide important insights for screening, prevention, and intervention during future public health crises.