CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The COVID-19 pandemic is putting anenormous strain on our mental health. Several studies have shown an increase inmood and anxiety disorders around the world. However, the mechanisms underlyingthe emotional distress provoked by the pandemic and its consequences remainunknown. Our international research network tested the uncertainty distressmodel as a potential framework to understand the emotional distress provoked bythe pandemic. Eight hundred and seven Spanish speaking participants (Mage = 39.7, SD = 33.11, 68.9 % female) completed an online battery of questionnaires thatevaluates the different components of the model (uncertainty distress,intolerance of uncertainty, perceived and actual uncertainty, and perceived andactual threat), as well as demographic and situational variables. The resultsshow that, when threat related components of the model are entered first, theyexplain 24.9 % of the uncertainty distress variance and uncertainty relatedcomponents explain 14.2 % of the uncertainty distress variance, aftercontrolling for gender, age and education level. When the order is reversed,the uncertainty related components of the model explain 33.8 % and the threat relatedcomponents explain 5.3 % of the uncertainty distress variance. Our results showthat the components of our model significantly predict uncertainty distress ina Spanish speaking sample. These results support that uncertainty and threat,both actual and perceived, are independent mechanisms explaining uncertaintydistress. Uncertainty related components of the model are stronger predictorsof uncertainty distress than threat related components. These results alsosupport the further study of the therapeutic intervention based on theuncertainty distress model.