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Contribution Details

Type Working Paper
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Stress and worry in the 2020 coronavirus pandemic: Relationships to trust and compliance with preventive measures across 48 countries in the COVIDiSTRESS global survey
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Andreas Lieberoth
  • Shiang-Yi Lin
  • Sabrina Stöckli
  • Hyemin Han
  • Marta Kowal
  • Stavroula Chrona
  • Rebekah Gelpi
  • Thao Phuong Tran
  • Alma Jeftic
  • Huseyin Cakal
  • Taciano L Milfont
  • Jesper Rasmussen
Language
  • English
Institution University of Zurich
Series Name PsyArXiv Preprints
Number f7ghw
ISSN 0010-9452
Number of Pages 41
Date 2021
Abstract Text The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173,429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to investigate how psychological responses differ across countries and cultures, and how this has impacted behaviour, coping and trust in government efforts to slow the spread of the virus. Starting in March 2020, COVIDiSTRESS leveraged the convenience of unpaid online recruitment to generate public data. The objective of the present analysis is to understand relationships between psychological responses in the early months of global coronavirus resreictions, and help understand how different government measures succeed or fail in changing public behaviour. There were variations between and within countries. Although Western Europeans registered as more concerned over COVID-19, more stressed, and having slightly more trust in the governments’ efforts, there was no clear geographical pattern in compliance with behavioural measures. Detailed plots illustrating between-countries differences are provided.Using both traditional and Bayesian analyses, we found that individuals who worried about getting sick worked harder to protect themselves and others. However, concern about the coronavirus itself did not account for all of the variance in experienced stress during the early months of coronavirus restrictions. More alarmingly, such stress was associated with less compliance. Further, those most concerned over the coronavirus trusted in government measures primarily where policies were strict. While concern over a disease is a source of mental distress, other factors including strictness of protective measures, social support, and personal lockdown conditions must also be taken into consideration to fully appreciate the psychological impact of COVID-19 and to understand why some people fail to follow behavioral guidelines intended to protect themselves and others from infection.
Free access at DOI
Digital Object Identifier 10.31234/osf.io/f7ghw
Other Identification Number merlin-id:24126
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