ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1528189
This article is part of the Research TopicHealth and Psychological Adaptations to Life Challenges and Stressful ConditionsView all 5 articles
The parallel mediating effects of anxiety and depression in the relationship between sleep quality and fear of progression in individuals recovering from COVID-19
Provisionally accepted
- Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus stands as one of the most significant public health emergencies of this century. The rapid outbreak of COVID-19 infection, has caused fear in populations. Thus, it is essential to investigate the risk factors and the mechanisms associated with fear of progression (FoP) among individuals recovering from COVID-19. Because this information is of great significance to improve the physical and psychological discomfort of individuals after recovery and improve their long-term quality of life. Methods: A cross-sectional investigation of 861 individuals recovering from COVID-19 was conducted in China from January to February 2023. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Self-Rating depression scale, Self-Rating Anxiety scale, and fear of progression scale were used to estimate the mood status, sleep quality and fear of progression. Receiver operating characteristic curves, Pearson's correlation analysis, binary Logistic regression analysis, and Hayes' PROCESS Macro analysis were used to test the model.The results showed that sleep quality, anxiety, depression and fear of progression had positive correlations between each other, with coefficients ranging from 0.380 to 0.814. After adjusting bias, sleep quality, anxiety and depression are risk factors for FoP. In ROC curve analysis, the above three factors can predict the occurrence of FoP(AUC:0.646, 0.703,0.658,respectively). Anxiety, depression played a parallel mediating role in sleep quality and FoP, accounting for 59.9%, 13.8% of the total effect respectively.The results showed that anxiety and depression both played a parallel mediating role in the relationship between sleep quality and FoP. These findings provide potential guidance for the development and implementation of group-based interventions to address the mental health challenges of the post-COVID-19 era.
Keywords: sleep quality, Anxiety, Depression, Fear of progression, Post-COVID-19
Received: 14 Nov 2024; Accepted: 15 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Jia, Wang, Li, Hong, Lan and Zheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Meijuan Lan, Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Leilei Zheng, Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
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