COVID anxiety and mental wellness: the mediating roles of avoidance behaviors, affection deprivation, and received affection

Even in a post-pandemic world, individuals are still reporting feeling levels of anxiety related to COVID. The current study uses affection exchange theory to build a theoretic model relating COVID anxiety to COVID avoidance behaviors, affection deprivation/received affection, and aspects of mental wellness such as loneliness and depression. We assessed both direct and indirect effects in that model by collecting a Census-matched set of participants (N = 309) who reported on the last three weeks of their life. The results largely supported the predictions, with several direct effects between the variables. In addition, COVID anxiety showed small but significant indirect effects on mental wellness through both COVID avoidance and affection deprivation, showing those variables as potential mediators. The paper discusses those findings, including both theoretic and practical implications, and then poses some directions for future research.