Relationship between Depressive Symptoms and Stress in individuals with infectious history of COVID-19: Mediating Effect of purpose in life

Background: Corona Virus Disease 2019 (CVID-19) is spreading across the world and the epidemic is also a great stress event for individuals which may trigger lots of mental health issue . This study aims to investigate the relationship between depressive symptoms and stress in individuals with infectious history of COVID-19 in Wuhan and the mediating effect of purpose in life. Method: A total of 128 individuals with infectious history of COVID-19 who were discharged from designated hospital and furtherly accepted health management of 14-day rehabilitation, isolation and medical observation at Qingshan District Rehabilitation Station in Wuhan were selected for the testing of Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), Impact of Event Scale (IES) and purpose-in-life test (PLT). Results: : The depressive emotion, somatic symptoms and total score of CES-D in male group were significantly lower than that of in female participants ( P ＜ 0.001 ). The total score of CES-D was negatively correlated with all factors of PLT and positively correlated with all factors in IES ( P＜0.05 or 0.01 ). The feeling of life, life goal, intrusiveness and awareness had significant predictive effects on the total score of CES-D( P＜0.05 or 0.01 ), which could explain 69.3% of variations in the total score of CES-D. The purpose in life played a partial mediating effect between the stress and depressive symptoms in individuals with infectious history of COVID-19, and the mediating effect accounted for 13.33% of the total effect. Conclusions: : The females with infectious history of COVID-19 had more severe symptoms of depression. The stress of COVID-19 infectious history had predictive effect on depressive symptoms and purpose in life was mediator between stress and depressive symptoms.