The mediating role of coping styles in the relationship between COVID-19 anxiety and health anxiety

This study aims to investigate the mediating effect of coping styles on the relationship between anxiety triggered by COVID-19 and health-related anxiety in the general population of Kashan city during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional online questionnaire was used to collect data from 390 participants in Kashan, Iran, between March and April 2020, during the peak of the pandemic. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling. The assessment tools included the Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI), COVID-19 Anxiety Scale, Coping Responses Inventory (CRI), and Body Vigilance Scale (BVS). Descriptive and correlation analyses were performed using SPSS-22, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted with Amos-22 software to analyze the mediating role of coping styles. The Pearson correlation results revealed that problem-solving, social support, and cognitive reappraisal were negatively associated with health anxiety, while emotion-focused and somatization coping strategies were positively associated with health anxiety symptoms (p < .05). The SEM analysis showed that cognitive reappraisal acted as a negative mediator in the relationship between COVID-19 anxiety and health anxiety. Our findings support previous research indicating that emotion-focused coping strategies can exacerbate anxiety levels. Additionally, we found that cognitive reappraisal may serve as a protective factor in mitigating the transition from COVID-19 anxiety to health anxiety.