Stress during COVID-19 and Problems Encountered by College Students with Disabilities: The Mediating Role of the Pillars of PERMA.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns are raised across all populations and human activities. In higher education, college students with disabilities generally experience higher stress levels compared to peers without disabilities. The pandemic continues to negatively affect the well-being of college students with disabilities. In this study, we explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on 105 college students with disabilities. We conducted a multiple mediation analysis to examine if the five pillars: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (PERMA) mediated the relationship between stress level during COVID-19 and college problems. The result revealed that stress level during COVID-19 was significantly associated with all five PERMA pillars and stress level during COVID-19 significantly impacted college problems. Positive emotion was found to be the only significant mediator in the relationship between stress level during COVID-19 and college problems. This study highlighted the importance of helping to facilitate positive emotions for college students with disabilities under pandemic stress, as well as provided directions for post-pandemic recovery support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]