Resilience mediates the association between alexithymia and stress in Chinese medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic

作     者：Yuqun Zhang Tianyu Wang Shengji Jin Heng Zhang Lixia Chen Shizheng Du Yuqun Zhang;Tianyu Wang;Shengji Jin;Heng Zhang;Lixia Chen;Shizheng Du

作者机构：School of NursingNanjing University of Chinese MedicineNanjingJiangsuChina Department of Psychosomatics and PsychiatrySoutheast UniversityNanjingJiangsuChina 

出 版 物：《General Psychiatry》 (综合精神医学（英文）)

年 卷 期：2023年第36卷第1期

页      面：43-49页

核心收录：

学科分类：1002[医学-临床医学] 100205[医学-精神病与精神卫生学] 10[医学] 

基　　金：This work was funded by Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions,National Natural Science Foundation of China(grant number 82001426) School-based Youth Project Funding(grant number NZY82001426). 

主　　题：emotional stress finding 

摘      要：Background Evidence indicates that medical students have had high rates of mental health problems,especially during the COVID-19 pandemic,which could be affected by alexithymia—a marked dysfunction in emotional awareness,social attachment and interpersonal relationships—and stress.However,psychological resilience might relieve alexithymia and stress levels.Aims This study aimed to investigate the role of resilience in alexithymia and stress in medical students.Methods A total of 470 medical students completed online and offline surveys,including the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20(TAS-20),the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale(CD-RISC)and the College Student Stress Questionnaire(CSSQ).The data of five participants were excluded because of a lack of integrity.Mann-Whitney U test or Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare group differences in the CD-RISC scores among categorical variables.Spearman correlation analysis was employed to evaluate the associations between resilience and alexithymia and between resilience and stress.Mediation analysis was used to test the mediating effect of resilience between alexithymia and stress.Results Of the medical students considered in the analysis,382(81.28%)were female and 88(18.72%)were male.There was a significant negative correlation between the TAS-20 scores and the total and subtotal CD-RISC scores(p0.001).The CSSQ scores also significantly negatively correlated with the total and subtotal CD-RISC scores(p0.001).Resilience mediated the relationship between alexithymia and stress(total effect=1.0447,p0.001).The indirect effect of alexithymia significantly impacted stress through resilience(effect=0.1670,95%CI:0.069 to 0.281).Conclusions Our findings suggest that resilience might effectively reduce alexithymia and stress.They also contributed to a better understanding of the mediating effects of resilience on alexithymia and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.The evidence from these results encourages universities to focus on improving students’resilience.