Posttraumatic Growth and Resilience in COVID-19 Pandemic 0 Posttraumatic Growth and Resilience in COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

In the December of 2019, the world was shook by the outreaching effects of the novel Corona virus. No person, no country was prepared for the consequences of a pandemic. The contagion that later became a global health emergency, took away millions of lives and livelihoods. These were challenging times for health workers, carers and families. The world was not prepared for this pandemic, but the people somehow ‘adapted’ to it. People, all around the globe adapted with quarantine, social isolation and lonely deaths. The toughest times were no doubt very hard, but people still forged their way forward and developed means to stay positive, to stay connected amidst the lockdowns. Social media and online platforms facilitated a lot in this regard, and the mode of human communication, although changed because of the circumstances, still emerged and was a saving grace of this pandemic. With the surrounding circumstances, it was felt that despite these dark and heavy moments, there may be a silver lining. This study aimed to explore and understand association of posttraumatic growth and resilience, in the Covid19 pandemic. Based on the emerging literature on Covid19, it was hypothesized that the participants in Pakistan will show increase in resilience and posttrauma growth in this pandemic. A cross-sectional correlational study design was used. The sample was from across Pakistan (n=423), and the data was collected online, because of the social restrictions. As per the inclusion criteria any individual above age of eighteen years was eligible to participate in this study. The participants were informed about the purpose of the study, and an online informed consent mentioning avoidance of harm, deception, protecting anonymity and confidentiality with right to withdraw from the study was explained to the participants. To understand and evaluate posttraumatic growth and resilience, The Resiliency Theory and the Posttraumatic Growth Model was utilized. Posttrauma growth was understood through resilience, hope, cognitive appraisal and social support. The scales used in this study included the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 25 (CD-RISC-25), Post-traumatic Growth Inventory and Emotion Posttraumatic Growth and Resilience in COVID-19 Pandemic xiii Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Two of scales that were not available in Urdu, the Adult Hope Scale (AHS) and the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL-12) were translated in Urdu language following World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. The psychometric properties were also analyzed and reliability coefficients were found to be substantial for all scales. The results reveal that there exists a significant association between resilience and posttrauma growth (r (423) =.292, p<0.01) and posttrauma growth and hope (r (423) =.213, p<0.01). This study highlights how the general population of Pakistan appears to be resilient and seems to have a positive perspective on life despite the differences of gender, age, occupation, education or the challenges of being tested positive for Covid19. Moreover, a majority of single, undergraduate females participated in this study, but males appeared to be more resilient than the females (M= 1.79, S.D= .41). The regression analysis (β= .28) and the moderated mediation analysis showed how hope plays a very strong and significant role in the relationship of resilience and posttrauma growths and it was concluded that hope facilitates the role of resilience, that in turn helps to build posttrauma growth. The implications of these findings are discussed.