| The global pandemic of Newcastle pneumonia not only threatens public physical health but also affects public psychological health.Nostalgia,as a positive psychological resource,has the function of storing positive emotions,unifying feelings of self,and alleviating feelings of isolation,and is believed to be closely related to individuals’ subjective well-being and psychological health.Accordingly,this study selected first-year students at a university during an epidemic in a city and administered the Southampton Nostalgia Scale,the Positive Negative Affect Scale and the Mental Health Symptom Self-Rating Inventory.The relationship between perceptions of the epidemic,nostalgia,negative emotions and mental health problems among university students during the epidemic was explored to explore the mediating role of negative emotions between perceptions of the epidemic and mental health,and the moderating role of nostalgia.The study also examines whether an intervention to experimentally manipulate nostalgia levels can significantly reduce negative emotions and mental health problems among university students during the new pandemic.Two main studies are included.In Study 1,300 questionnaires were distributed to first-year students at a university in a city during an epidemic to analyze the relationship between epidemic perception,nostalgia,negative emotions and mental health,with a view to constructing a new theoretical model of the impact of nostalgia on university students’ mental health during an epidemic,and to provide evidence that nostalgia is a protective factor for mental health.In Study 2,based on Study 1,the top100 university students with a high level of epidemic perception were randomly divided into two groups(nostalgia group and control group)and a 21-day nostalgia intervention was conducted on this group to test the effect of nostalgia on improving the mental health of university students during the epidemic.The results showed that(1)university students scored significantly higher on all10 factors of the Self-Rating Scale of Mental Health Symptoms(SCL-90)during the epidemic than the normative group,and those who perceived the epidemic to be high scored higher on all factors and total scale than those who perceived the epidemic to be low.Negative emotions mediated the relationship between perception of the epidemic and mental health problems,and the effect of perception of the epidemic on mental health problems was achieved by reducing negative emotions.When nostalgia levels were grouped high and low,university students in the low group scored significantly higher than those in the high group on all 10 factors of the SCL-90 and on the total scale.Nostalgia negatively moderated the relationship between perceptions of epidemic and negative affect,and high levels of nostalgia significantly reduced the effect of perceptions of epidemic on negative affect.(2)In the intervention study,subjects in the experimental group scored lower on both negative affect and mental health problems than those in the control group.After the intervention,subjects in the experimental group had higher levels of nostalgia,lower negative emotions and fewer mental health problems,but subjects in the control group had lower levels of nostalgia,higher negative emotions and mental health problems,with significant differences between the pre and post measures of mental health problems.Conclusion: The effect of epidemic perception on mental health problems during epidemics is achieved by reducing negative emotions.As a positive psychological resource,high level of nostalgia can effectively weaken the significant influence of epidemic perception on negative emotions,so as to alleviate the adverse impact of negative emotions during the epidemic and improve the level of mental health. |
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