Resource Threat versus Resource Loss and Emotional Well-Being of Ethnic Minorities during the COVID-19 Pandemic (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Public Health, 2022
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Distress and Resilience in the Days of COVID-19: Comparing Two Ethnicities
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing epidemic of coronavirus disease, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome, which has spread recently worldwide. Efforts to prevent the virus from spreading include travel restrictions, lockdowns as well as national or regional quarantines throughout the international community. The major negative psychological outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic is the anxiety caused by it. The aim of the present study was to examine the level of concern and the contributions of modes of resilience, well-being and demographic attributes towards decreasing or enhancing anxiety and depression among two samples: Israeli Jews (majority group) and Israeli Arabs (minority group). These random samples included 605 Jews and 156 Arabs who participated in an internet survey. A previous study, which has been conducted in the context of terror attacks, has shown that compared to Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs expressed a higher level of fear of war and lower levels of resilience...
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Psychological Stress among Palestinians during the COVID-19 Pandemic
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We examined the distress level of 102 Holocaust survivors in Israel during a recent period of continuous exposure of the Israeli population to terror and the threat of missile attack. Based on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we explored the contribution of losses suffered during the Holocaust and of current loss of resources due to terror attacks on their distress level. Twenty one percent of the sample had probable PTSD and high psychological distress levels in general. Current loss of psychosocial resources contributed significantly to survivors' current PTSD symptomatology and general psychological distress, above the contribution of the previous Holocaust-related loss. Our findings support COR theory, which states that traumatic events are associated with ongoing and often rapid loss of resources. Resource loss, in turn, is associated with higher distress levels. Moreover, current loss of resources compounds the impact of earlier resource losses incurred during the Holocaust.
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The aim of this study was to explore the coping resources of hope and sense of coherence, which are rooted in positive-psychology theory, as potential resilience factors that might reduce the emotional distress experienced by adults from three cultural groups in Israel during the chronic-stress situation of a pandemic. The three cultural groups examined were secular Jews, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Arabs. We compared these cultural groups during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, just before the Jewish New Year (mid-September 2020) as a second lockdown was announced. Data were gathered from 248 secular Jews, 243 Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and 203 Arabs, who were 18-70 years old (M = 37.14, SD = 12.62). The participants filled out self-reported questionnaires including the Brief Symptom Inventory as a measure of emotional/psychological distress (i.e., somatization, depression, and anxiety) and questionnaires about sense of coherence and different types of hope (i.e., intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal) as measures of coping resources and resiliency. Differences were found between the three groups in terms of several variables. The Arab participants reported the highest levels of emotional distress and the lowest levels of interpersonal and transpersonal hope; whereas the Ultra-Orthodox participants revealed the highest levels of sense of coherence and other resilience factors. A structural equation model revealed that, in addition to the sociodemographic factors, only sense of coherence and intrapersonal hope played significant roles in explaining emotional distress, explaining 60% of the reported distress among secular Jews, 41% among Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and 48% among Arabs. We discuss our findings in light of the salutogenic and hope theories. We will also discuss their relevancy to meaning-seeking and self-transcendence theory in the three cultural groups.