Page 175 - Ana Mlekuž in Igor Ž. Žagar, ur. • Raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju: Izobraževanje učiteljic in učiteljev za raziskovalno učenje in poučevanje. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2024. Digitalna knjižnica, Dissertationes 48

longitudinal analysis of covid-19 anxiety and mental well-being during lockdown ...
ID-19 anxiety compared to students from Russia. In Slovenia, the restric-
tions were relatively stable across the four waves, and therefore, we assume
that there were coping mechanisms and specific levels of adaptation to the
“new normal”.
Secondly, we examined whether differences in initial levels and week
to week changes in COVID-19 anxiety and in mental well-being were affect-
ed by the two-time invariant covariates, emotional self-efficacy and prac-
ticing mindfulness. We hypothesised that emotional self-efficacy and prac-
ticing mindfulness would predict higher initial levels of mental well-being,
as well as lower initial levels of COVID-19 anxiety, and more stable trajec-
tories during the lockdown. The conditional LCG model was used to ex-
amine the effect of emotional self-efficacy and practicing mindfulness on
the intercept (initial level) and slope (rate of change). For COVID-19 anxi-
ety, emotional self-efficacy negatively predicted the intercept and positive-
ly predicted the slope, whereas practicing mindfulness was not a signifi-
cant predictor. This means that participants with a lower level of emotional
self-efficacy had higher levels of COVID-19 anxiety at the starting point,
and a steeper slope, indicating greater improvement (i.e., a decrease) in
COVID-19 anxiety during lockdown compared to participants with higher
levels of emotional self-efficacy. For the latter individuals, a flatter slope in-
dicates a more stable trajectory for COVID-19 anxiety. It seems that high-
er emotional self-efficacy, manifesting in better regulation of negative emo-
tions, protects individuals from high COVID-19 anxiety and at the same
time helps individuals to be more stable (i.e., independent of outside cir-
cumstances)and self-centred. Other studies also report that lower emo-
tional stability was associated with increased feelings of worry and stress
during the pandemic (Somma et al., 2020). O'Connor et al. (2020) report-
ed individuals with pre-existing mental health problems as having more
mental health difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may also
be the result of difficulties with emotional regulation. As regards to men-
tal well-being, emotional self-efficacy positively predicted the intercept and
not the slope. This means that participants with higher levels of emotion-
al self-efficacy have higher mental well-being at the starting point, howev-
er, the level of emotional self-efficacy was not significantly associated with
the rate of change.
To our surprise, practicing mindfulness did not predict any of the pa-
rameters (intercept or slope) of COVID-19 anxiety or mental well-being.
Based on the well-documented negative relationships between mindful-

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