摘要：The long-term impact of the COVID19 pandemic on mental health is only starting to emerge. Beyond direct effects on mental health, it is crucial to investigate how negative psychological responses to the COVID-19 pandemic might affect the etiological processes of different mental disorders. In the current online study, we investigated whether a negative psychological response to the pandemic might predispose individuals towards posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) development after exposure to a non-COVID-19- related traumatic stressor. Moreover, we examined if these effects are mediated by the strength of associative fear learning during trauma. Method: 122 undergraduates took part in an online study from March to July 2020. Subjects completed two questionnaires measuring their psychological responses (distress and rumination) to the COVID-19 outbreak. On a subsequent day, they went through a fear conditioning task, in which two originally neutral stimuli (conditioned stimuli, CSs) were repeatedly paired with the appearance of an aversive film clip (unconditioned stimulus; US). Subjective ratings (US expectancy, fear, arousal, and valence) were assessed as indicators of the strength of associative fear learning. Approximately 28 hours later, participants were asked to document film-related intrusive memories and ruminative, trauma-related thoughts they had experienced in the meantime. Results: We demonstrate that COVID-19-related distress predicts analog PTSD symptoms of a nonCOVID-19-related stressor and that these effects are fully mediated by the strength of associative fear learning during exposure to the analog stressor. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that negative psychological responses to the COVID-19 pandemic should be considered as an emerging pre-traumatic risk factor.
