TY - JOUR A1 - Chong, Y. Y. AU - Chien, W. T. AU - Cheng, H. Y. AU - Lamnisos, Demetris AU - Lubenko, Jelena AU - Presti, Giovambattista AU - Squatrito, Valeria AU - Constantinou, Marios AU - Nicolaou, Christiana AU - Montesinos Marín, Francisco AU - Et al. T1 - Patterns of Psychological Responses among the Public during the Early Phase of COVID-19: A Cross-Regional Analysis Y1 - 2021 SN - 1661-7827 UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11268/9973 AB - This study aimed to compare the mediation of psychological flexibility, prosociality and coping in the impacts of illness perceptions toward COVID-19 on mental health among seven regions. Convenience sampled online survey was conducted between April and June 2020 from 9130 citizens in 21 countries. Illness perceptions toward COVID-19, psychological flexibility, prosociality, coping and mental health, socio-demographics, lockdown-related variables and COVID-19 status were assessed. Results showed that psychological flexibility was the only significant mediator in the relationship between illness perceptions toward COVID-19 and mental health across all regions (all ps = 0.001–0.021). Seeking social support was the significant mediator across subgroups (all ps range = <0.001–0.005) except from the Hong Kong sample (p = 0.06) and the North and South American sample (p = 0.53). No mediation was found for problem-solving (except from the Northern European sample, p = 0.009). Prosociality was the significant mediator in the Hong Kong sample (p =0.016) and the Eastern European sample (p = 0.008). These findings indicate that fostering psychological flexibility may help to mitigate the adverse mental impacts of COVID-19 across regions. Roles of seeking social support, problem-solving and prosociality vary across regions. KW - Coronavirus KW - Epidemia KW - Efectos psicológicos KW - Salud mental LA - eng ER -