Original title: Fear of the coronavirus (COVID-19): Predictors in an online study conducted in March 2020
Researchers surveyed 439 people online between March 14 and 17, 2020, soon after the outbreak was declared a pandemic. They measured fear with an eight-question survey and asked people to describe their concerns. In their analysis, greater health anxietyStrong worry about having, or developing, a health problem., regular media use, social media use, and concern about risks to loved ones were linked to higher fear scores. People also raised concerns such as loved ones’ health, overloaded health care systems, and economic consequences.
Imagine trying to get through a week when you do not know what will happen next. Each news update brings another worry, and you keep thinking about whether people you love will be safe. In this paper, that continuing uncertainty is the situation people faced, while their worries, media use, and concern for loved ones were factors linked to how much fear they reported.
Fear can help people respond to danger, but ongoing uncertainty can make it a burden. Knowing which factors were associated with coronavirus fear may help people managing public health crises understand what is weighing on the public.
The survey was conducted online with 439 people over four days in March 2020, so the abstract does not establish that its findings apply to everyone or to later stages of the pandemic. The reported links do not show that these factors caused fear. The abstract also does not describe how participants were recruited.
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Fear of the coronavirus (COVID-19): Predictors in an online study conducted in March 2020 — Gaëtan Mertens, Lotte Gerritsen, Stefanie Duijndam et al. — Journal of Anxiety Disorders — doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102258
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.