No abstract

Problematic smartphone use (PSU) has been linked with stress. Higher levels of stress likely increased problematic smartphone use. We investigated relations between stress, fear of missing out, and problematic smartphone use. The aim of the current study was to analyze the mediating role of fear of missing out (FOMO) and smartphone use frequency (SUF) between stress and PSU. We surveyed a broad sample of 2,276 Chinese undergraduate students in July 2019, using the FOMO Scale, Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version, Smartphone Use Frequency Scale, and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21. The results showed that stress was associated with PSU severity. Gender differences were found in PSU severity. Furthermore, FOMO was positively associated with SUF and PSU severity. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that FOMO acted as a mediator between stress and PSU severity. FOMO and SUF acted as a chain of mediators between stress and PSU severity. SUF did not account for relations between stress and PSU severity. The study indicates that FOMO may be an important variable accounting for why some people with increased stress levels may overuse their smartphones.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a major impact on productivity and life functioning, and also led to adverse emotional reactions. In the face of this public health event, increased anxiety is one of the most common emotional reactions. Previous studies have shown that anxiety sensitivity, rumination and anxiety are closely related. Various dimensions of anxiety sensitivity have different effects on anxiety. Also, rumination can be divided into brooding and reflection. To explore the relationships among anxiety sensitivity’s cognitive concerns, anxiety and different types of rumination, we conducted an online survey during the outbreak of coronavirus (February 17–25, 2020), using the Anxiety Sensitivity Scale-3 (ASI-3), Ruminative Responses Scale (RSS), and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). The results showed significant positive correlations among anxiety sensitivity’s cognitive concerns, anxiety, brooding and reflection. Furthermore, brooding and reflection had a chain mediation effect between cognitive concerns and anxiety, and the mediation effect of reflection was even stronger. Results suggest that anxiety sensitivity’s cognitive concerns may not only affect anxiety directly, but also affect anxiety through rumination, especially reflection.

Mortality is one of the most important epidemiological measures and a key indicator of the effectiveness of potential treatments or interventions. In this paper, a permutation test method of variance analysis is proposed to test the null hypothesis that the real-time fatality rates of multiple groups were equal during the epidemic period. In light of large-scale simulation studies, the proposed test method can accurately identify the differences between different groups and display satisfactory performance. We apply the proposed method to the real dataset of the COVID-19 epidemic in mainland China (excluding Hubei), Hubei Province (excluding Wuhan), and Wuhan from 31 January 2020 to 30 March 2020. By comparing the differences in the disease severity for differential cities, we show that the severity of the early disease of COVID-19 may be related to the effectiveness of interventions and the improvement in medical resources.