Childhood Adversity, Resilience, and Paranoia During the COVID-19 Outbreak. The Mediating Role of Irrational Beliefs and Affective Disturbance

In this study, we investigated two potential candidates: irrational beliefs and affective disturbance. Moreover, we investigated the potential moderating role of COVID-19 perceived stress in these associations. A community sample (N = 419,m age  = 27.32 years,SD = 8.98; 88.10% females) completed self-report measures. Results indicated that paranoia was significantly associated with CA and resilience (p <  .05), and both irrational beliefs and affective disturbance (i.e., depressive and anxiety symptoms) mediated the associations between CA and paranoia. Moreover, depressive and anxiety symptoms partially explained the mediating role of irrational beliefs. These predictive models explained up to 23 .52% of variance in paranoia (F(3,415)  = 42.536,p <  .001). Findings on resilience and paranoia replicated these results, and COVID-19 perceived stress moderated the association between resilience and ideas of persecution. Overall, these findings underscore the importance of irrational beliefs, depressive and anxiety symptoms in high CA or low resi lience individuals experiencing paranoia.
Source: Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research