Religious Coping, Experiential Avoidance, Self-Compassion, and Post-Traumatic Stress by COVID-19: a Serial Mediation Study

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought consequences to mental health, with religiosity being a relevant coping factor in reducing the negative impact of the health crisis. Based on a convenience sample of Chilean adults, this study sought to explore the relationship between religious coping and post-traumatic stress due to COVID-19, hypothesizing that this relationship would be mediated by experiential avoidance and self-compassion. A non-experimental cross-sectional design was used, applying an online survey to 300 adults who lived in Chile. The results show that all variables are related and that experiential avoidance (EA) and self-compassion play a serial mediating role in the relationship between negative religious coping (NRC) and post-traumatic stress. Furthermore, the results showed that religious coping, experiential avoidance, self-compassion, and COVID-19 post-traumatic stress are significantly interrelated. Moreover, a serial mediation was found among the variables: higher experiential avoidance and lower level of self-compassion mediate the impact of COVID-19 post-traumatic stress in people with negative religious coping. At the end of the article, the implications of the results and how these variables interact in a serial mediation mechanism that sheds further light on the relationships between negative religious coping, mental health, and adverse situations such as COVID-19 are discussed.