Resilience and Spirituality as Moderators between Several Concerns and Psychological Distress during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to psychological stress caused by several threats such as concerns for health, economic problems, and several others. This study aims at exploring if inner resilience and belief in spiritual support may moderate the relationship between the concerns, on one side, and distress and the attitudes towards anti-COVID-19 vaccines, on the other side. We conducted a study involving 235 participants through an online survey from March to April 2021 in Italy, immediately after the last lockdown that took place in March 2021. Several scales were used to measure various difficulties and concerns, resilience, beliefs about spiritual support, conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19, psychological distress, and acceptance of the anti-COVID-19 vaccines. We found that resilience moderates the relationship between several concerns and psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among the participants who have strong beliefs in spiritual support.