• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.483-512
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• 2022

This study examined the patterns of coping strategies among Koreans during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, explored the influence of demographic information (gender, age, economic level, household type), along with the unusual experiences due to COVID-19 (fear, stress of COVID, constraints of routine, income risk) on the classification of subclasses, and analyzed the latent profile differences in psychological wellbeing (life satisfaction, depression, and anxiety). An online survey was conducted among Korean Adults(n=600) between April 13, 2020 and 21, when WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and Daegu as well as Gyeongsangbuk-do was nominated as a special disaster zone. First, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was used to identify subclasses of coping strategies and results suggested that the 4-class model had the best fit. Second, Class memberships were predicted by gender, age, economic level, as well as fear, stress, constraints of routine, and income risk, among the unusual experiences due to COVID-19. Finally, there are differences in psychological wellbeing among latent profiles. 'High level of adaptive coping group 3' showed the highest level of life satisfaction, 'Adaptive-maladaptive coping group 4' showed the highest level of depression, anxiety. Implications and suggestions are discussed based on the study results.