How Migration Stress and Covid-19 Threat Cause Prolonged Grief Disorder, A Multi-country study

Abstract Using coping theory, this research creates and evaluates a process model to investigate the sequential mediating roles of perceived Covid-19 threat (PC-19 threat) and death anxiety on the relationships between migration stress, psychological distress, and prolonged grief disorder (PGD) among Afghan refugees who migrated to Pakistan and China after the Afghan war. The proposed model for Study 1 proved fully supported and demonstrated that migration stress has significant positive association with perceived psychological distress (β = 0.39, p < .001). Furthermore, significant relationship between migration stress and psychological distress is significantly mediated first by PC-19 threat and then significantly by death anxiety. Study 2, incorporated time-lag datasets technique to investigate the sequential moderating effect of resistance. Additionally, study 2 found that migratory stress was strongly associated with PGD (β = 0.21, p < .01). It was also articulated that resilience significantly moderated migration stress’s sequential indirect effect on psychological distress and PGD. The implications and future objectives of the study have been highlighted.