(PS13-B37) Examining the Link Between Intolerance of Uncertainty, Psychological Flexibility, and Perceived Social Support with Feelings About Loss During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Significant and varied losses have affected many lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the tragic loss of life, the impact of non-death losses may go overlooked or under-treated compared to death losses. Varied types of loss may be especially salient for college students navigating significant life transitions and shifting levels of social support when entering academia asynchronously or remotely. Early research identifies intolerance of uncertainty (IU), perceived social support (PSS), and psychological flexibility (PF) as potential risk or protective factors for adaptive responses to stress and grief. Whether these factors are similarly implicated in a wide range of losses, including non-death losses, remains unknown. As risk and resilience factors are potentially modifiable with psychotherapy, IU, PSS, and PF may be ideal treatment targets when addressing maladaptive feelings and reactions to loss. To further explore the potential link with these factors, this study examined whether levels of IU, PF, and PSS would be associated with positive affect, negative affect, and regret regarding both death and non-death loss on the Feelings About Loss Scale (FALS; Cooley et al., 2010). Study participants included 377 undergraduates who completed self-report measures regarding the most impactful loss they experienced during the first three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Risk and protective factors were measured using the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (Carleton et al., 2007), the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1998), and the Personalized Psychological Flexibility Index (Kashdan et al., 2020). Three multiple linear regression models were fit with IU, PF, PSS entered as predictor variables. Each model included a distinct subscale of feelings about loss as separate outcome variables: positive affect (F[3,373]=6.08, p< .001, R²=.05), negative affect (F[3,373]=16.9, p< .001, R²=.12), and feelings of regret regarding loss (F[3,373]=17.4, p< .001, R²=.12). Results indicated that higher levels of PSS were significantly associated with positive affect (β=0.19, p< .001). Conversely, IU and PF were not meaningfully linked to positive affect. Higher levels of IU (β=0.23, p</em>< .001) and lower levels of PSS (β=-0.24, p< .001) were significantly associated with negative affect. Similarly, higher levels of IU (β=0.23, p< .001) and lower levels of PSS (β=-0.23, p< .001) were also significantly related to feelings of regret concerning loss. In contrast, PF was neither significantly related to negative affect nor feelings of regret. Results highlight the importance of potentially modifiable risk and resilience factors for adaptive feelings about loss broadly conceptualized to include death and non-death losses. Specifically, PSS may play an important role across both positive and negative domains of loss reactions to varied losses, whereas IU could be more salient to distress (e.g., negative affect and regret) and PF might be less relevant in this context. Future research should investigate the relationship between reactions to loss and IU, PF, and PSS within a clinical sample and whether these relationships differ by specific types of loss.