Psychological resilience in time of COVID-19 crisis: emotion regulation as a protective factor

Psychological resilience is the ability to adapt successfully in the face of stress and difficulty. People with weak resilience are at risk of experiencing long-term negative emotions and poor recovering from the crisis, thus endangering their mental health. Adaptive emotion regulation can help maintain mental balance and increase resilience. The objective of the present study was to explore emotion regulation skills as a predictive factor of the psychological resilience during Covid-19 crisis in Latvia, after controlling for basic socio-demographic factors. The current study was a part of the National research programme „Impact of COVID-19 on health care system and public health in Latvia: ways in preparing health sector for future epidemics”, project Nr. VPP-COVID-2020/1-0011. The study investigated influence of the predictor variables (gender, age, education, employment, marital status and emotion regulation skills) on the criterion variable (psychological resilience) using a national representative sample (N = 2608; aged from 18 to 74; 39.7 % male, 60.2 % female, 0.1% other). Measures included the Psychological Resilience Scale (Perepjolkina & Mārtinsone, in preparation) and the Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ-27; Berking & Znoj, 2008). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that within socio-demographic indicators age, education, employment and marital status are weak predictors of resilience (R = .128, R2 = .017, F (5, 2527) = 8.481, p < .001). When the emotion regulation skills were added to the model, age and education became non-significant and the only strong predictor of resilience became emotion regulation skills (R = .482 R2 = .233, F (1, 2526) = 710.905, p< .001). These findings improve understanding of why some people are able to adapt during and after a crisis, while others experience long-term negative mental health outcomes. Successful emotion regulation is one of the important factors in resilience and can protect against stress during and after the crisis.