4.1. The PR of College Students in China after the Deblocking of China’s COVID-19 Pandemic
After the deblocking of China’s COVID-19 pandemic strategy, only 27.3% of Chinese college students had high PR during COVID-19, while 24.9% of the students had low PR, indicating that the PR of Chinese college students should be improved. Compared to previous studies during the COVID-19 pandemic in China, the PR level of college students after the deblocking of China’s COVID-19 pandemic strategy were similar to that reported in such studies [
9,
29]. Zeng et al. [
9] investigated an independent college in Guangdong province in 2020 by using the Psychological Resilience Scale proposed by Hu and Gan (five-point Likert scale), the score of PR was 3.417 ± 0.443; and in our previous investigation conducted in the Hunan province in 2021 by using the Chinese version of the Resilience Scale for College Students (RSCS), constructed by Liu, the PR of college students was 137.97 ± 15.50, which is close to the median, indicating that the participants’ PR was at a medium level [
29]. However, the PRs of this study were lower than students in some other countries. Sarmiento et al. reported that 57.7% of the university students in Spain presented high resilience [
30]; Surzykiewicz et al. found that the resilience in the Polish population during the COVID-19 period were 18.64 ± 5.28 (ranging from 0–30) [
31].
PR is varied in different regions, populations, and individuals. As previous studies reported, the framework of PR has both internal and external factors [
32], and adversity is an important factor in the concept of PR [
33]. Internal factors of PR include biological and psychological factors, such as gender, physical condition, intelligence, and so on. External factors include family, society, countries, peer group, isolation measures, etc. However, the stress and adversity are obviously non-randomly distributed among individuals [
1]. So, the enhancement of PR lies not in avoiding stress, but in how people deal with life changes and how they act in the face of adversity [
34].
4.2. Influencing Factors of PR among Chinese College Students after the Deblocking of China’s COVID-19 Pandemic Strategy
According to the Coping with COVID-19 with Resilience (COPERS) study initiated by the international Public Mental Health Section of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), it is important to identify the PR trajectories of adults aged 18 years and older and to detect factors that potentially influence their PR in the different countries [
35]. The premise of improving college students’ PR is to understand the protective or risk factors related to PR. In this study, these factors are mainly personal factors and family environmental factors, which is consistent with previous research. The results of ordered logistic regression analysis showed that the independent protective factors for the reduction of high PR include a high sense of efficacy, and the independent risk factors of high PR were weak self-confidence, low frequency of family contact, poor family function, and unhealthy mental health, and females are likely to have higher PR than males.
- (1)
PR and self-efficacy
There was a positive correlation between self-efficacy and PR among Chinese college students after the deblocking of China’s COVID-19 pandemic strategy. The stronger the individual’s self-efficacy, the higher the level of PR, which is consistent with other research [
36,
37,
38,
39,
40,
41]. As previous studies reported, the correlation between PR and self-efficacy is quite high. For example, if individuals do not have a sense of self-efficacy, they will lack sufficient motivation to persist in difficulties or adversity, and it will be difficult to produce resilience [
38]. In a study on nurses’ academic burnout, it is pointed out that there is a significant relationship between PR and self-efficacy, and students with a higher PR score higher in academic efficacy. The higher the general self-efficacy of college students, the more likely they are to adopt optimistic and positive thinking and behavior in coping with adversity [
40]. Some researchers explained the reasons for the above conclusions as follows: self-efficacy is an important factor of PR, and a high level of self-efficacy can be used as a stress buffer to improve PR [
41].
- (2)
PR and mental health
After the deblocking of China’s COVID-19 pandemic strategy, the PR of Chinese college students is positively correlated with mental health, which indicates a predictive effect of resilience to mental health. The higher the level of resilience, the better the state of mental health. A domestic study on whether college students have left behind experience points out that mental health status problems are negatively correlated with resilience [
42]. Foreign scholars have also pointed out that resilience is negatively correlated with mental health status problems such as pain, depression, anxiety, unhappiness, and other domains [
43,
44,
45]. In adversity, compared with young people with lower resilience, young people with higher resilience are less likely to have mental health status problems and can better cope with adversity [
46]. Thus, some frustration with education and training could be added to the work of mental health status promotion among students.
- (3)
PR and monthly contact with family and family function
Related to the COVID-19 pandemic, this is the first study to give evidence of the two factors (monthly contact with family, family function) having a positive impact on the PR. The family provides a key support for individuals: the more actively parents encourage, the more they can make their children focus on their career goals [
47]; the warmer family members felt, the easier it is to help individuals cultivate confidence in overcoming difficulties and the ability to adapt to the environment [
48]; and the existence of a family connection provides protection for the students [
34], such as financial assistance, advice when children are confused, etc. [
49]. The reason for this phenomenon may be related to the children’s attachment to their parents. The higher the degree of parent–child attachment, the lower the level of social interaction anxiety and the higher the psychological resilience [
50].
- (4)
PR and gender
After the deblocking of China’s COVID-19 pandemic strategy, results from this study show that the PR score of females was higher than that of males, while research of medical students showed that the PR score of female medical students was lower than that of male medical students [
51]. As for the opposite results, Rutter once explained that females seem to be less vulnerable than males when facing psychosocial adversity, and women are less likely to cause destructive behavior in others [
34]. However, Hirani and Hegadoren hold a different opinion and gave a detailed explanation, they pointed out that although women’s scores on resilience indicators are generally lower than those of men, the existing concept of resilience does not reflect gender roles and differently shapes the experiences of women and men and their responses to adversity [
52]. And, according to the results of the stratified analysis by gender in this study, the PR of females and males were independently affected by monthly contact with family, family function, mental health, and self-efficacy. However, for female students, the PR of females was independently affected by family function, mental health and self-efficacy. Only the factor of monthly contact with family was different among female and male students, which might be caused by the contact habit differences between females and males. Therefore, more research about the resilience among different genders should be explored.
Basing on the above findings, consistent with previous studies [
30,
31], socio-demographic variables have no significant way to build resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this study found that the importance of family support (monthly contact with family and family function) as a protective factor against anxiety, loneliness, fear, and other negative feelings experienced during college life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, schools and families should pay more attention to family support for students. Situations similar to the COVID-19 pandemic may occur in the future, and intervention strategies should be put in place to meet the family support required. Additionally, some intervention measures should be put in practice to tackle the absence of family support. More research is needed to study effective ways to improve and maintain a good psychological resilience.
However, there are some limitations to this study and our results should be interpreted with caution. First of all, this study is limited by its cross-sectional analysis, thus the causal relationships cannot be obtained. Secondly, all data are from the questionnaire survey, which is easily affected by the mood and living environment of the subjects during this investigation, so the data can only reflect the feelings of the respondents in the period before the survey. Thirdly, the respondent biases were unavoidable as a result of the self-reported design. Finally, this survey was only conducted in China, which limits its generalization to other areas.