The role of experiential avoidance with the mediation of distress tolerance in predicting corona anxiety in the period of covid-19 outbreak: structural equation model

During the outbreak of Corona, the anxiety due to Corona led to psychological distress and challenged distress tolerance.

The present study aimed to investigate the structural relationships between Corona anxiety and experiential avoidance with the mediating role of distress tolerance in the period of the outbreak of Covid-19.

The method of this study was based on the fundamental objective and the descriptive method of the correlation type based on the structural equation method. The statistical population included all students of Kharazmi University in 2018-2019, who were students during the outbreak of Corona and virtual education. Based on this, 350 students were selected by multi-stage cluster random sampling. The participants responded to Alipour et al.'s Corona Anxiety Scale (2018), Simons and Gaher's Distress Tolerance Scale (2005), and Bond et al.'s (2011) Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire in a Google form. Finally, the data were analyzed via SPSS-24 and AMOS-14.

The results showed; the structural model between Corona anxiety and experiential avoidance with the mediating role of distress tolerance had the goodness of fitness. The direct effect of experiential avoidance on the anxiety of Corona disease was positively significant, therefore, the direct effect of experimental avoidance on distress tolerance and distress tolerance on Corona anxiety was negatively significant (P<0.01).

Experiential avoidance can predict the level of Corona anxiety with the mediating role of distress tolerance. Based on the findings, it is suggested; researchers should pay attention to the psychological findings obtained from this study in future studies in the field of disease anxiety, especially diseases that are highly contagious such as covid-19 in humans.