The Impact of Covid-19 Fear on the Mindfulness Skills among University Students

Abstract

The pandemic caused disruptions in university life and left health, study and family safety in an uncertain state. Evidence regarding the association of mindful attention with pandemic specific fear among Pakistani students is scarce. This is a cross-sectional study that explores the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and mindful attention among 120 undergraduate students (18-25 years) from the universities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan. The participants participated in a convenience sampling and filled out the seven-item Fear of COVID-19 Scale and 15-item Mindful Attention Awareness Scale in May 2022. This was acceptable for the internal consistency of the two measures, Cronbach's alpha = .824 and .791, respectively. Mindful attention was weakly inversely associated with fear of COVID-19, but this was not significant. This same conclusion was made in a simple linear regression model with less than 1% of the variance in mindful attention accounted for, R2 = .008, F (1, 118) = 0.96, p = .328. So, the correlation of the results of this sample is not meaningful in terms of a direct correlation between pandemic fear and attentive awareness. They suggest that it is not just a few personal and social factors that affect students' mindfulness attention, but a broad context. Future studies should utilize more balanced and larger samples and other factors such as anxiety, coping, social support, and exposure to pandemic related stressors.