o:30733 Mentalizing, Resilience, and Mental Health Status among HealthcareWorkers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study en Abstract : The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented stress on healthcare professionals worldwide. Since resilience and mentalizing capacity play very important preventive roles when it comes to mental health, the main goal of this study was to determine whether the capacity for mentalizing and resilience could explain the levels of depression, anxiety, and stress among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted in Serbia on a sample of 406 healthcare workers (141 doctors and 265 nurses) aged 19 to 65 (M = 40.11, SD = 9.41). The participants’ mental health status was evaluated using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale—DASS-42. The Reflective Functioning Questionnaire was used to evaluate the capacity for mentalizing. Resilience was assessed using the Brief Resilience Scale. The results of the correlation analysis showed that there were negative correlations between resilience and all three dimensions of mental health status: depression, anxiety, and stress. Hypermentalizing was negatively correlated with depression, anxiety, and stress, while hypomentalizing was positively correlated. Hierarchical linear regression analysis showed that both resilience and hypermentalizing were significant negative predictors of depression, anxiety, and stress, and that hypomentalizing was a significant positive predictor of depression, anxiety, and stress. Furthermore, socioeconomic status was a significant negative predictor of depression, anxiety, and stress. Marital status, number of children, and work environment were not statistically significant predictors of any of the three dimensions of mental health status among the healthcare workers in this study. There is an urgent need to establish and implement strategies to foster resilience and enhance the capacity for mentalizing among healthcare workers in order to minimize the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. Keywords : COVID-19; mental health status; mentalizing; depression; anxiety; stress; resilience; Serbia; doctors; nurses. 1552099 10.3390/ijerph20085594 2023-09-06T12:29:21.444Z 44 no 46 Teodora Safiye 0000-0002-9297-8449 Medo Gutić person Jakša Dubljanin person 0000-0002-5767-7798 Tamara M. Stojanović person Draško Dubljanin person 0000-0002-8522-3849 Andreja Kovačević person Milena Zlatanović person Denis H. Demirović Državni univerzitet u Novom Pazaru person 0000-0002-7775-1473 Nemanja Nenezić person Ardea Milidrag person 0000-0001-6766-9196 application/pdf 392919 https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:30733 no yes 16 70 92000001 20A01 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) 20 8 1 14 2023