The causal relationship between psychological hardiness and perceived social support with psychological well-being in students with a history of coronavirus and no history of the disease: The mediating role of fear and anxiety of corona disease

The aim of this study was to investigate the causal relationship between psychological hardiness and perceived social support with psychological well-being and the mediating role of fear and anxiety of corona disease in students with a history of coronavirus and students without a history of the disease. The research design was descriptive-correlational through structural equation modeling (SEM). The statistical population of the study included all students of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in 2020-2021. From this population, 250 students were selected by convenience sampling method. The instruments used in this study included the Kiamarsi et al.’ Psychological Hardness Scale (1998), Zimet et al.’ Perceived Social Support Scale (1990), Weisi et al.’ Fear of Disease Coronaviruses Scale (2020), Alipour et al.’ Corona Disease Anxiety Scale (2020), and Ryff and Keyes’ Psychological Well-Being Scale (1995). The goodness of fit of the proposed model was examined through structural equation modeling (SEM), using Amos-24 software packages. Indirect effects were also investigated using the bootstrap method. Also, comparison between students with a history of coronavirus and students without was performed by multi-group modeling structural equations in AMOS-24 software. The results showed that psychological hardiness, perceived social support, fear of corona disease, and anxiety of corona disease have a direct effect on psychological well-being (p<0.05). Also, the findings showed that anxiety of corona disease mediated the relationship between psychological hardiness and psychological well-being (p<0.05). Finally, the results showed that the path of anxiety of corona disease to psychological well-being is stronger in students with a history of coronavirus than students without a history of coronavirus (p<0.05). In general, according to the findings of this study, anxiety and fear of diseases such as coronavirus are factors affecting psychological well-being, but positive traits such as psychological toughness and perceived social support are also important factors affecting people's mental health and well-being.