How and When COVID-19-related News Consumption Relates to Mental Health Complaints-A Cross-Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Since the emergence of COVID-19, a substantial body of research has been published regarding its psychological impacts, particularly on young adults. COVID-19-related news consumption has been shown to be an important factor in this regard. However, extant research is largely exploratory in nature and lacks a more nuanced examination of this relationship. Against this backdrop, in the present study, we draw on terror management theory to develop and test a moderated mediation model to examine how and when COVID-19-related news consumption may relate to young adults' mental health complaints. Specifically, we hypothesize that COVID-19-triggered mortality salience moderates the positive indirect association between COVID-19-related news consumption and mental health complaints through COVID-19-related knowledge, such that the indirect relationship is more pronounced when the level of COVID-19-triggered mortality salience is relatively high compared to low. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 250 student participants from two public universities in the capital of Bangladesh. RESULTS: Results support our proposed hypotheses. Moderated mediation analysis showed that the hypothesized model accounted for approximately 31% of the variance in mental health complaints. CONCLUSION: Our study elucidates a nuanced mechanism of how and when COVID-19-related news consumption relates to mental health complaints by presenting a moderated mediation model. Our study findings may inform further research related to the global pandemic and mental health.