Yes / Many governments including Malaysia imposed movement restrictions as public health measure to minimize COVID-19 (coronavirus) risks. Due to prolonged isolation, poorer physical and mental health is expected in the general population. Our aims were to examine (1) the mediating role of perceived social isolation (SI) and fear of social isolation (FSI) on the relationship between gratitude and anxiety, and (2) to explore the moderating role of age, education and socioeconomic status (SES) on the mediation model. A total of 427 participants currently living in Malaysia (Mage = 37.90, SD = 16.51, 313 females) completed a survey on isolation, gratitude and anxiety during a period of national lockdown. Results showed that that those with higher gratitude reported having less SI and FSI and less anxiety (Model 1). In Model 2 with age as moderator, young adults (YA) and middle-aged adults (MA) who had higher gratitude experienced lower SI and in turn had lowered anxiety, but such mediating role of SI was not observed among older adults (OA). As for FSI, MA who had higher gratitude had lower FSI and also lower anxiety but this relationship was not observed in YA or OA. We also examined the role of education and SES as moderators in the parallel mediation analysis. Results showed that the indirect association of gratitude with anxiety via FI and FSI was moderated by both education and SES. Specifically, among those with low education levels (regardless of SES), those with higher gratitude had lower SI and FSI which in turn reduced anxiety. This relationship is similar for those with medium level of education and from low and middle level of SES as well. Our findings highlight the importance of having some coping mechanism e.g., gratitude and social connection during the pandemic to have higher wellbeing and quality of life, especially for MA sample and people from low education and SES background. / This work was supported by Newton Fund Institutional Links grant ID: 331745333, under Newton-Ungku Omar Fund partnership to MHY. The grant is funded by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) and delivered by the British Council. For further information, please visit www.newtonfund.ac.uk . The Newton Fund played no role in the planning and conceptualization of the manuscript, did not participate in the writing of the manuscript, and played no role in the decision to submit the manuscript.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19675 |
| Date | 20 October 2023 |
| Creators | Tan, C.Y., Ng, J.Y., Lin, M.H., Yong, Min Hooi |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, Published version |
| Rights | (c) 2023 Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)., CC-BY-NC |
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