Buffering the Fear of COVID-19: Social Connectedness Mediates the Relationship between Fear of COVID-19 and Psychological Wellbeing.

Social connections are crucial for an individual's health, wellbeing, and overall effective functioning. During the COVID-19 pandemic, one major preventative effort for reducing the spread of COVID-19 involved restricting people's typical social interactions through physical distancing and isolation. The current cross-sectional study, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, explored the relationship among fear of COVID-19, social connectedness, resilience, depressive symptomologies, and self-perceived stress.

Meaning Matters: Self-Perceived Meaning in Life, Its Predictors and Psychological Stressors Associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Past research has found that a perceived meaning in life can act as a protective factor against adverse mental health symptomology, while also providing coping resources to buffer against the impact of negative life events. The current research investigated how the impact of self-perceived meaning in life as well as its predictors interact with stressors and worry related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected survey based data ( = 260) from Australian participants during the pandemic, measuring their meaning in life, orientation to differing life goals and COVID-19 related stressors via the impact of events scale.