Exploring the Moderating Role of Hedonia and Eudaimonia on the Relationship between Stress and Mental Health in Young Adults

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper  "aimed to explore the effects of these well-being states on mental  health by examining their moderating role in the stress and mental health relationship."     "this study aimed to explore the effects of these well-being states on mental  health by examining their moderating role in the stress and mental health relationship." line 265.    Thank you for the opportunity to review this study, my considerations about it are described below:  

Important Q  "on how well-being affects somatic health, and the association between greater well-being and positive physical health outcomes has been confirmed on numerous occasions"    Q: To test whether hedonic and eudaimonia moderate the relationship between stress and mental health, hierarchical regression analyses were performed.     

definitions: Hedonia is typically described as a life of pleasure and experience of subjective well-being and positivity. Eudaimonia is oriented toward greatness and growth, it is commonly believed to promote mental health.   compare:  Petrovic, F, et al.  FOOD, EXERCISE AND LIFESTYLE ARE PREDICTORS OF A HEDONIC OR EUDAIMONIC QUALITY OF LIFE IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS,  Acta MIssiologica, 2/ 2023  pages: 99-114 https://www.actamissiologica.com/sub/am_2_2023.pdf   

Interesting results and comments:   

important IDEA: experience :  for example: "greater experience of positive emotions may be important.."  more: lines 117, 127...    WELL-STRUCTURED ARTICLE,  EXCELLENT DISCUSSION  ... lines 262... ---- Recommendation:  How important is Experience ?:  Sirotkin, A.V.; et al.  Impact of COVID-19 on University Activities: Comparison of Experiences from Slovakia and Georgia. Sustainability 2023, 15, 1897. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15031897    (From the philosophical perspective of person-centred therapy )

Kralik, R. er al. (2023). THE RELEVANCE OF THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES IN ACCOMPANIMENT FOR SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS WITH POST-COVID-19 SYNDROME. |Acta Missiologica p. 97-105 https://www.actamissiologica.com/sub/am1_2023.pdf   

Q to the authors:  How important is ?  THE IMPACT OF RELIGIOSITY ON QUALITY OF LIFE " Murgas, F. et al. THE IMPACT OF RELIGIOSITY ON QUALITY OF LIFE " Acta Missiologica 2023, page.: 169-186 https://www.actamissiologica.com/sub/am_2_2023.pdf     

----  Flaws: 

- add 1-2 paragraphs to CONCLUSION 

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Congratulation on your article

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The research “Is it Pleasure or Virtue that protects Mental Health in Times of Stress? Exploring the moderating Role of Hedonia and Eudaimonia on the Relationship between Stress and Mental Health” is an interesting study by Ivana Marcinko, aimed at testing the moderating effect of hedonic and eudemonic behaviors in the association between stress level and mental health, focusing on a population composed by students ranged 18-30 years old. Below, I try to point out suggestions useful at increasing the quality of this research.

 

Title

Since the sample of this study consists of healthy students with mean age of 19.78, the title should specify this. Moreover, the two sentences of the title seem to be redundant. Therefore, I would suggest dropping the first part, which is less informative, and reformulate the title as e.g.: “Exploring the moderating Role of Hedonia and Eudaimonia on the Relationship between Stress and Mental Health in Young Adults”

Abstract

Line 11: Typo, the Author should delete the parenthesis. 

Lines 14-16: the two sentences seem to report the same information. I suggest to remove the second one (The best general…high hedonia). 

 

Introduction

Line 24: Is “well-being” intended as “psychological well-being”? A better definition of “well-being” could be helpful.

Line 26: I suggest removing “e.g.”. 

Lines 35: “Having said that, it has to be acknowledged that”. This seems to be superfluous and non-informative for the economy of the sentence.

Lines 36-40: In order to make easier to understand, this sentence should be reformulated in a more succinct form. 

Lines 45-47: Evidences supporting this statement should be reported. 

Lines 56-58: This sentence should be reformulated in order to avoid redundancies. Moreover, this association should also be briefly explained.

Line 86: The Author should remove the comma. 

Lines 90-93: The sentence should be reformulated as more concise. 

Lines 102: The Author should insert the parenthesis in the in-text citation “[26, 27]”.

 

Material and Methods

Lines 142-146: This information should be moved to the Results, as the in the Methods inclusion and exclusion criteria for recruiting the sample should be explained. 

Lines 152-153: Do the items “look like” or has the Author reported them literally? The latter should be preferable. Moreover, how many items does each questionnaire consist of? The Author should better specify all these aspects. 

Lines 160-166 and 167-175: As above, the Author should better describe the composition of the scales (how many items? Which kind of answers is required to be reported in the MHI? Theoretical ranges of severity?)  

Lines 186-187: The Author should describe in more detail the correlation (Pearson? Spearman?) and regression analyses. 

 

Results 

Lines 192-195: This part should be moved to Methods, Data Analysis.

Lines 200-203: As mentioned above, the theoretical range of results should be explained in the description of each scale in the Methods. 

Table 2: Has the gender been included in the correlation model? Moreover, I strongly suggest rechecking the correctness and completeness of data insert.

Lines 208-209: SES variable should be better described in the Methods (is it linear?).

Lines 214-215: It seems to be redundant. 

Lines 219-227: This should be part of Methods, Data Analysis

 

Discussion

The limitation regarding the young and healthy sample might have less impact on the results if the author decided to set "people aged 18-30 years" as the inclusion criterion, so as to focus on the young population. This is important to avoid a selection bias. Moreover, this should be reported in the Introduction. 

 

Finally, I suggest to align the in-text citations to the editorial norms: (e.g. [1, 2, 3] -> [1-3]).

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I strongly suggest to avoid using contracted verbal forms  (e.g “haven’t” should be replaced with “have not”).

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The impact on mental health or well-being of the two constructs analysed in this study can be deduced from the correlations presented. This should always be taken with caution.

Some considerations in this respect raise the question of whether these values are antecedent or consequent. In other words, it is difficult to establish the meaning of these relationships. The pursuit of pleasure, in particular the success of this pursuit, undoubtedly marks the state of mental and emotional well-being of the person.

But a low state of mood and psychological well-being is also reflected in a low attitude towards engaging in pleasurable behaviours.

In summary, as already indicated in the conclusions, these results are about correlations and not causal relationships.

What is interesting is the fact that immediacy in pleasurable activities produces a more evident effect. On the other hand, the sample used is quite young (average age around 20 years), which may be logically related to the behaviour of these measured variables. 

Generalisation to other more mature strata of the population should be analysed with caution (doubts about external validity).

It should be made explicit how the participating subjects belonging to the chosen centres were selected.

We also assume that the questionnaires used are validated in populations similar to the one used in this study.

Otherwise, this work raises an interesting issue to carry out measures that can help prevent problems related to mental health and increase psychological well-being.

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I recommend paying attention to the verbal tense concordance (e.g. "The inclusion criteria to take part in the study WERE that the participant IS a male or female) and checking there is a space between words (lines 40, 200, 373 etc.)

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Average

Author Response

Response to a reviewer 2, round 2:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank You for the suggestions on the English language to improve the manuscript.

The manuscript has been proofread.

Also, the space between words has been checked throughout the paper.