Dispositional Mindfulness, COVID-19 Burnout, and Life Satisfaction: Examining Longitudinal Mediation

The associations among the dispositional mindfulness, COVID-19 burnout, and life satisfaction has been examined in cross-sectional studies. However, the fact that these variables were not considered together in any longitudinal research created a gap in the literature. The present study used a longitudinal design to examine whether COVID-19 burnout mediated the association between dispositional mindfulness and life satisfaction in a Turkish sample. In order to overcome the severe limitations of examining mediation with cross-sectional data, an autoregressive analysis of cross-lagged panel model for a half-longitudinal design was used to test the mediating role of COVID-19 burnout in the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and life satisfaction. In this cross-lagged panel model, data were collected at two time points at three-month intervals. The results indicated that COVID-19 burnout has a longitudinal mediating role in the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and life satisfaction (χ²_{(27, N = 263)} = 140.96, p < .001; SRMR = 0.033; CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.92, NFI = 0.94, IFI = 0.95). Current findings highlight that focusing individuals on the present during the pandemic is a powerful tool to protect their mental health.