Chinese public’s knowledge, perceived severity, and perceived controllability of COVID-19 and their associations with emotional and behavioural reactions, social participation, and precautionary behaviour: a national survey

Abstract

Background The outbreak of the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) has caused enormous stress among the public in China. Intellectual input from various aspects is needed to fight against COVID-19, including understanding of the public’s emotion and behaviour and their antecedents from the psychological perspectives. Drawing upon the cognitive appraisal theory, this study examined three cognitive appraisals (i.e., perceived severity, perceived controllability, and knowledge of COVID-19) and their associations with a wide range of emotional and behavioural outcomes among the Chinese public. Methods Participants were 4607 citizens (age range: 17–90 years, Mage = 23.71 years) from 31 provinces in China and they took part in a cross-sectional survey online. Results The results showed that the public’s emotional and behavioural reactions were slightly affected by the outbreak of COVID-19. Moreover, the public had limited participation in the events regarding COVID-19 but actively engaged in precautionary behaviour. In addition, results of structural equation model with latent variables revealed that the three appraisals were differentially related to the outcome variables (i.e., negative emotion, positive emotion, sleep problems, aggression, substance use, mobile phone use, social participation, and precautionary behaviour). Conclusions The findings highlight the utility of cognitive appraisal, as a core process of coping stress, in explaining the public’s emotion and behaviour in the encounter of public health concern. Practically, the findings facilitate the government and practitioners to design and deliver targeted intervention programs to the public.

What Motivates Medical Students to Engage in Volunteer Behavior During the COVID-19 Outbreak? A Large Cross-Sectional Survey

“…In particular, there is a lack of platforms and channels to support medical students in providing volunteer services. Under the background of public health emergencies, health service workers faced overload work, the challenge of health resources serious scarce, more social participation and support is required ( Li et al, 2020 ), this study focused on the medical students to participate in volunteer service real attitude, motivation and incentive mechanism research, the academic research helps to improve college students volunteer service incentive mechanism.…”

Anxiety Severity, Perceived Risk of COVID-19 and Individual Functioning in Emerging Adults Facing the Pandemic

“…The only certainty is the uncertainty.” Previous research emphasized the negative impact of uncertainty, insecurity, and instability on mental health and psychological well-being ( Ornell et al, 2020 ; Torales et al, 2020 ). They underlined that uncertainty and the low predictability of COVID-19 personal, social, and financial consequences, are affecting people’s mental health, due to their difficulty to react successfully and satisfactorily to the situation, especially with regard to anxiety management ( Jeong et al, 2016 ; Cao et al, 2020 ; Li et al, 2020a , b ; Li S. et al, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2020 ). In a pandemic, fear and insecurity increase anxiety levels in healthy individuals and intensify the symptoms of those pre-existing psychiatric disorders ( Shigemura et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Studies among the Chinese general population have found that symptoms of anxiety have shown a higher increase due to COVID-19 ( Li et al, 2020a , b ; Wang et al, 2020 ). In one study, about a third of the interviewees reported moderate to severe anxiety, while they reported lower depressive and stress scores ( Wang et al, 2020 ).…”

Социально-Психологические Предпосылки И Эффекты Доверия Социальным Институтам В Условиях Пандемии

“…Этот «эффект большинства», получивший в социальной психологии название дескриптивных норм, когда поведение человека определяется представлением о наиболее типичном поведении других членов социальной группы, Полученные данные хорошо согласуются с результатами других исследователей. Так, оказалось, что убеждение в контролируемости угрозы COVID-19 позитивно влияет на психологическое благополучие и повышает готовность следовать правилам предосторожности [Li et al, 2020]; наибольший отклик получают сообщения с призывом оставаться дома из сострадания к людям, уязвимым в отношении COVID-19 [Blagov, 2020]; сострадание к заболевшим в сочетании с тревогой по поводу эпидемии повышает готовность к вакцинации и использованию дезинфицирующих средств [King, Kamble, DeLongis, 2016], а также мотивацию к социальному дистанцированию в условиях пандемии COVID-19 [Pfattheicher et al, 2020].…”