Psychological Inflexibility Predicts Depression and Anxiety During Covid-19 Pandemic

Ilhan Cicek*, Ahmet Tanhan **, Metin Bulus ***
* Batman University Health College, Batman, Turkey.
** Economic and Social Research Center – ESAM (Ankara, Turkey), Department of Counseling at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (North Carolina, USA) and Adiyaman University (Adiyaman, Turkey); Institute for Muslim Mental Health (Michigan, USA), Association for Contextual Behavioral Sciences, Turkey Chapter (Istanbul, Turkey).
*** Adiyaman University, Faculty of Education, Adiyaman, Turkey.
Periodicity:May - July'2021
DOI : https://doi.org/10.26634/jpsy.15.1.18198

Abstract

COVID-19 has affected people across the globe in psychosocial and economic aspects. This process has been difficult for most people, even more for some others including (teachers, administrators at educational settings) working in educational settings. The purpose of this study was to understand the predictive effect of psychosocial factors (gender, age, marital status, Additional Time Spent (ATS) on social media, ATS internet compared to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic and expert programs), and psychological inflexibility on depression and anxiety for teachers employed in the Ministry of Education during the pandemic. Participants included 514 adults (49% women). The findings of the study revealed that psychological factors and psychological inflexibility together explained 47% of the variance in depression and 42% of the variance in anxiety. Specifically, gender, social media and psychological inflexibility were significant predictors of both depression and anxiety during the pandemic. In addition to the predictive effect of psychosocial factors, these results indicated that psychological flexibility was important to develop further evidence based mental health services to address psychopathology and enhanced wellbeing. The findings of the study were discussed in the light of literature, and some suggestions were provided for future research and practice.

Keywords

Psychological Inflexibility, Teachers, Depression, Anxiety, COVID-19 Pandemic.

How to Cite this Article?

Cicek, I., Tanhan, A., and Bulus, M. (2021). Psychological Inflexibility Predicts Depression and Anxiety During Covid-19 Pandemic. i-manager's Journal on Educational Psychology, 15(1), 11-24. https://doi.org/10.26634/jpsy.15.1.18198

References

[3]. Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1-48.
[5]. Beck, A. T., Ward, C. H., Mendelson, M., Mock, J., & Erbaugh, J. (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4(6), 561-571.
[9]. Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence: Erlbaum Associates.
[10]. Çiçek, İ., Tanrıverdi, S., Şanlı, M. E., & Bulus, M. (2021). Parental attitudes and socio-demographic factors as predictors of smartphone addiction in university students. International Journal of Psychology and Educational Studies, 8(2), 158-169.
[14]. Fergus, T. A., Valentiner, D. P., Gillen, M. J., Hiraoka, R., Twohig, M. P., Abramowitz, J. S., & McGrath, P. B. (2012). Assessing psychological inflexibility: The psychometric properties of the avoidance and fusion questionnaire for youth in two adult samples. Psychological Assessment, 24(2), 402-408.
[19]. Genc, E., Tanhan, A., & Kose, O. (2021). Exploring the facilitators and barriers to intimate relationships during Covid-19 through online photovoice methodology. Manuscript in preparation.
[21]. Hayes, S. C., & Strosahl, K. D. (2004). A Practical Guide to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. New York, NY: Springer.
[23]. Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
[24]. Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K., Wilson, K. G., Bissett, R. T., Batten, S. V., Bergan, J., & Eifert, G. H. (2003). The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ) as a measure of experiential avoidance, Psychological Record.
[25]. Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D. ,& Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change. New York: Guilford Press.
[27]. Hisli, N. (1988). Beck Depresyon Envanteri'ningeçer liliğiüzerinebirçalışma. PsikolojiDergisi, 6(22), 118-126.
[28]. Hisli, N. (1989). Beck DepresyonEnvanteri'nin üniversite öğrencileri için geçerliği, güvenirliği. PsikolojiDergisi, 7(23), 3-13.
[51]. Subasi, Y., Adalar, H., Tanhan, A., Arslan, G., & Allen, K., Boyle, C., Lissack, K., & Collett, K. (2021). College students' experiences of distance education in the context of COVID-19 through Online Photovoice (OPV). Manuscript under review.
[61]. Tümkaya, S., Kuşdemir Kayıran, B., Tanhan, A., & Arslan, Ü. (2021). Using Online Photovoice (OPV) to understand youths' perceptions of distance education during COVID-19. Manuscript in preparation.
[63]. Ulusoy, M., Sahin, N. H., & Erkmen, H. (1998). The Beck anxiety inventory: Psychometric properties. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 12(2), 163-172.
[65]. Wenzlaff, R. M., & Wegner, D. M. (2000). Thought suppression. Annual Review of Psychology, 51(1), 59-91.
If you have access to this article please login to view the article or kindly login to purchase the article

Purchase Instant Access

Single Article

North Americas,UK,
Middle East,Europe
India Rest of world
USD EUR INR USD-ROW
Pdf 35 35 200 20
Online 35 35 200 15
Pdf & Online 35 35 400 25

Options for accessing this content:
  • If you would like institutional access to this content, please recommend the title to your librarian.
    Library Recommendation Form
  • If you already have i-manager's user account: Login above and proceed to purchase the article.
  • New Users: Please register, then proceed to purchase the article.