The role of harmonious and obsessive work passion and mental health in professionally active people during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland: the mediating role of the cognitive coping strategies

Abstract

This study examines the relationships between work passion and cognitive coping strategies, and their relevance to the occurrence of depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic in the working population. The study was conducted on a total sample of 317 employees. The Passion Scale, Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7, and the Athens Insomnia Scale were used. Study confirmed that cognitive coping strategies are a mediator in the relationship between work passion and the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia. The harmonious work passion was associated with adaptive cognitive coping strategies (e.g., positive reappraisal, planning), which were associated with lower intensity of depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms. The obsessive work passion, in turn, was associated positively with maladaptive cognitive coping strategies (e.g., catastrophizing, rumination), which related to a greater intensity of depressive, anxiety and insomnia symptoms. Harmonious work passion is related to lower level of mental health symptoms through the use of adaptive cognitive coping strategies, while obsessive work passion is linked to a higher intensity of the negative symptoms through the use of maladaptive cognitive coping strategies used dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.