Houshang Garavand
Abstract
Objective: The Coronavirus not only affects physical health but also the outbreak of this virus can have devastating psychological effects. To treat and diagnose, these impacts should be identified. This study investigatied the mediating role of empathy in the relationship between self-compassion and ...
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Objective: The Coronavirus not only affects physical health but also the outbreak of this virus can have devastating psychological effects. To treat and diagnose, these impacts should be identified. This study investigatied the mediating role of empathy in the relationship between self-compassion and psychological capital with corona anxiety.
Method: The research method was correlational with path analysis. The population of this study included all undergraduate students of Poldokhtar Higher Education Center (450 students) who were studying in the academic year 2020-2021. The sample of the study consisted of 210 male students who answered the Corona Disease Anxiety Scale (CDAS; Alipour & et al., 2020), Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003), Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ; Luthans et al., 2007), and Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1983) electronically. Casual modeling was used to analyze data.
Results: The results showed that the proposed model has a good fit with the data of this study (RMSEA = 0.001, GFI = 1.00, AGFI = 0.98, CFI = 1.00). The results showed that the psychological capital had a direct effect on corona anxiety (β = -0.16, p<0.05), but self-compassion did not have a positive effect on corona anxiety (p>0.05). Self-compassion had a positive effect on empathy (β = 0.32, p<0/01); but psychological capital did not affect empathy (p>0/05) directly. Also, empathy positively affected corona anxiety (β = -0.29, p<0/01). Indirect pathway results showed that only self-compassion mediated by empathy could reduce corona anxiety (p<0/01).
Conclusions: According to the results, students with higher psychological capital and empathy experience less corona anxiety, and on the other hand, the more self-compassion increases, the more empathy improves, which results in a decrease in corona anxiety. Therefore, through education and promotion of self-compassion, empathy can be increased and the severity of corona anxiety in students can be reduced.
