Mediating effect of perceived social support between mindfulness level and mental health of nursing undergraduates during the epidemic of novel coronavirus pneumonia

  Objective  To study students' mental health status during epidemic of novel coronavirus pneumonia, and to explore the influence of mindfulness level and perceived social support on mental health.

  Methods  A total of 240 undergraduate nursing students were investigated with Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale, Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire, Perceived Social Support Scale and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. SAS and Mplus were applied to describe the data and conduct mediation analysis.

  Results  About 18.8% of the participants were depressed and 27.9% were anxious, 13.3% were stressed, and 31.7% had problems of sleeping. The mindfulness level could directly affect sleep disorder (β = - 0.242, P < 0.001), stress (β = - 0.397, P < 0.001), anxiety (β = - 0.350, P < 0.001)and depression(β = - 0.484, P < 0.001), and could also indirectly affect sleep disorder (β = - 0.171, P < 0.001), stress (β = - 0.105, P = 0.029), anxiety (β = - 0.102, P = 0.034) and depression (β = - 0.180, P < 0.001) via the mediation role of perceived social support with the mediating effects accounted for 41.40%, 20.92%, 22.52% and 37.19%, respectively.

  Conclusions  Mindfulness level can improve the mental health of nursing undergraduates through direct action and understanding the intermediary role of social support. Nursing educators can consider integrating mindfulness decompression training into daily teaching, and give nursing undergraduates enough psychological and emotional support and encouragement to improve their mental health level.