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European Journal of Applied Sciences (EJAS) Vol. 12, Issue 4, August-2024

health event concerning public health, which can increase negative emotions such as stress,

anxiety and depression among the population (Feng et al. 2023; Guo and Chen 2003).

Negative emotions (e.g. depression, anxiety) are a common psychological response of the

population in the context of major public health events (Guo et al., 2020). Studies have been

conducted on the relationship between Covid-19 and negative emotions, pointing out that the

three-year-long strict prevention and control policies of Covid-19 have led to a perception of

low-controllability and low-predictability of Covid-19 infection in the Chinese population,

which can lead to a high degree of negative emotions such as depression and anxiety

following a rapid increase in the infection rate (Guo et al.2020; Syed 2020; Zhang and Gan

2020). For Chinese residents, the ongoing psychological stress of strict epidemic prevention

and control policies and concerns about the consequences of infection (both at the health

level as well as at the policy level) over the past three years have created persistent

psychological stress among some segments of the population, leading to a long-term buildup

of negative feelings that, if severe, may not immediately improve with the end of the epidemic.

At the same time, China has a population of more than 1.4 billion, the large population size

and high density of population bring more significant psychological stress to individuals when

they encounter the infection of Covid-19 in a short period of time; Chinese society follows a

collectivist culture, so Chinese people's self-identification is highly correlated with group

identification and group support; therefore, this study will focus on the moderating effect of

social support on the negative emotions of Chinese people after Covid-19 infection.

Rumination refers to individuals who spontaneously and repeatedly think about the

symptoms, causes, and potential adverse consequences of negative feelings when

experiencing negative life events or stressful events without trying to solve the problem, and

this kind of thinking can aggravate and prolong negative emotional states (Treynor et al.2003;

Guo and Wu 2011, The stress-response-model states that individuals are prone to activate

rumination when they experience negative stressful events (Alloy et al., 2000). Rumination

mediates between negative life events and negative emotions, and negative life events

activate rumination, which is a susceptibility factor for depression and anxiety and can

further induce or exacerbate negative emotions (Huang and Chen et al.2019; Zhang et al.2022;

Liu and Wang 2017; Chen et al.2018). Covid-19 infection is a negative life event faced by the

population that may induce their rumination, which in turn induces or exacerbates negative

emotions.

Social support is the degree of emotional satisfaction in which individuals subjectively feel

supported and understood, and the buffer model states that it is a protective mechanism, and

favorable social support can change individuals' poor self-perceptions, reduce negative

emotions (Tigers 2010), reduce the negative effects of negative events (Zhao and Wang 2016),

and improve their psychological well-being (Marini et al. 2020). It has been found that social

support can modulate the effect of people's Covid-19 pandemic risk perception on anxiety,

and the higher the level of social support, the lower the level of anxiety induced by the risk

perception (Giovana et al.2023: at the same time, social support can modulate the effect of

social adversity perception on rumination, and the social adversity perception. low level of

social support predicts rumination, whereas the social adversity perception of people with

high level of support no longer predicts it (Jin et al. 2020).

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He, L., Feng, Z., Hu, C., & Pan, Q. (2024). The Influence of COVID-19 Infection on Chinese Peoples’ Negative Mood: The Role of Rumination and

Social Support. European Journal of Applied Sciences, Vol - 12(4). 69-80.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.124.17249

In summary, this study proposes a mediated model with moderation (Figure 1) to investigate

the effect of Covid-19 infection on negative emotions in the population, and the mediating role

of rumination and the moderating role of social support.

Figure 1: Hypothetical model diagram

METHOD

Participants

Cross-sectional study design was used to analyze the participants. The recruitment period for

this study was from February 6th,2023 to February 20th,2023, we used convenience sampling

to select 2,200 people to participate in a questionnaire survey in four communities in a

district of Chongqing, China. Chongqing is a municipality directly under the Central

Government of China, a national central city, a mega city, and one of the national important

central cities approved by the State Council of China, which makes Chongqing one of the most

representative Chinese cities. Therefore, the residents of a district in Chongqing were selected

as the object of study. Invalid questionnaires were excluded, and 2104 valid questionnaires

were retrieved with an effective rate of 95.64%. Among them, 584 (27.8%) were male and

1520 (72.2%) were female; mean age (41.46±6.15). All subjects signed the informed consent

form for the survey.

Procedures

The research group initiates communication with community managers to apprise them of

the survey's content, purpose, and confidentiality. Approval and support from community

managers are sought before proceeding.

The survey is conducted using the Chinese online questionnaire platform "Wen Juan Xing."

Participants are informed about survey-related details and asked for informed consent on the

initial page of the questionnaire. Community staff members distribute the questionnaire QR

code through various community social media channels such as WeChat groups and QQ

groups. Residents are encouraged to actively engage in the survey. Participants scan the QR

code to access the questionnaire, where they are required to confirm the "Survey Informed

Consent Form" before proceeding. All questions on the questionnaire are mandatory and

must be answered in full before submission. Upon completion of the survey, the research

team downloads the survey data from "Wen Juan Xing" and proceeds with data collation and

analysis.