Country/Region Level Pandemic Severity Moderates the Relationships among Risk Experience, Perceived Life Satisfaction, and Psychological Distress in COVID-19

Abstract

Scholars and communications practitioners worldwide have sought novel resilience models amid heightened rates of psychological distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined perceived life satisfaction as a determinant of resilience. Additionally, we investigated the assumption that perceived pandemic severity at the country/region level moderates structural relationships within our risk–resilience model. Analyzing more than 34,000 valid samples from 15 countries/regions, we found that (1) perceived life satisfaction alleviated psychological distress across all 15 countries/regions; and (2) country/region-level pandemic severity moderated the relationships among COVID-19 symptom experience, perceived life satisfaction, and psychological distress. The effects of COVID-19 symptom experience and perceived life satisfaction on psychological distress were conditional. We discuss possible mechanisms behind our findings and provide practical implications for mitigating psychological distress during public health crises.