COVID-19 Pandemic reported as being most Traumatic by Neurotic Personalities

With the devastating effects of COVID-19, neurotic personalities found the pandemic most traumatic.

COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant influence on the lives of people around the world and could be a risk factor for mental health diseases.

However, it is found that neurotic personalities found the pandemic most traumatic, while agreeable and conscientious personalities offered protection from the pandemic's negative impacts as per a study “Which personality traits can mitigate the impact of the pandemic? Assessment of the relationship between personality traits and traumatic events in the COVID-19 pandemic as mediated by defense mechanisms” at the University of Florence, published in the journal PLoS ONE.

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‘With the devastating effects of COVID-19, neurotic personalities found the pandemic most traumatic. However agreeable and conscientious personalities offered protection from the pandemic's negative impacts. This helps explore the pathways leading to post-traumatic symptoms by investigating the big five personality traits and their interactions with mature, neurotic, and immature defenses in their association with the impact of the event.’

The study team explored the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by identifying patterns related to post-traumatic symptoms and considering the big five personality traits and their interactions (defense styles) with mature, neurotic, and immature defenses in their association with the impact of the event (pandemic).

Neuroticism was hypothesized to be negatively associated with the impact of the event, as opposed to extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness traits.

The study enrolled 557 Italian individuals (71.3% women, 28.7% men) for an online survey including the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, Forty Item Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40), and Ten Item Personality Inventory. The mediation role of mature, neurotic, and immature defenses in these relationships was also investigated.

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Personality Traits and Response to Pandemic

It was found that extraversion and openness revealed a nonsignificant effect on the impact of the event. Significant negative effects from immature and neurotic defenses (in the indirect path) were exhibited with neuroticism.

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The data also showed two protective pathways that involved agreeableness and conscientiousness, which interacted directly with defense mechanisms and only indirectly with the impact of the event. Specifically, both these personality traits were negatively associated with immature defensive styles, which represented a risk factor for mental health.

Thus conscientiousness was positively related to mature defences. On the contrary, neither extraversion nor openness showed a significant association with impact of event (expression of the specific situation involving COVID-19).

The study thereby provides an exploration of post-traumatic symptom patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic, involving varied personalities and their defense mechanisms. These results may be useful for developing interventions, treatments, and prevention activities.

Source-Medindia