The Relationship of Mental Health and Resilience withPosttraumatic Growth through the Mediating of DefensiveStyles in the COVID-19 Survivors

Background: during the covid-19 pandemic, the number of people suffering frompsychological disorders has increased all over the world.objectives: the present study aimed to investigate the relationship of mental health and resiliencewith posttraumatic growth (ptg) through mediating of defensive styles in the covid-19survivors.materials & methods: this was a descriptive cross-sectional study using structural equationmodeling (sem). the research population included all covid-19 recovered patients in gorgan,iran. using convenience sampling method, 300 patients who recovered from covid-19 wereselected. the research instruments included the posttraumatic growth inventory, connor-davidson resilience scale, the general health questionnaire, and defense style questionnaire.the participants were given questionnaires online.results: the results of sem suggested that the proposed model fits the data. the direct pathsfrom ptg, mental health, and resilience to the developed defensive styles were positive andsignificant (p<0.01). in addition, the relationship between mental health and resilience withptg was positive and significant (p<0.01). the relationship between ptg, mental health, andresilience with the immature and neurotic defensive styles was negative and significant (p<0.01).conclusion: the findings revealed that mental health, resilience, and developed defensive styleshad a tremendous impact on the increase of ptg in covid-19 patients. accordingly, they can beused to reduce the psychological problems caused by the covid-19 pandemic.