Aims The objective of this study was therefore to analyze the effect of exceptionally stressful situations, such as the current health risk, on the cognitive and emotive state of the individual, that is, perceived threat and emotional state on affect and mood. Method This was a cross-sectional study with snowball sampling. The sample came to 1014 Spanish adults (67.2% women and 32.8% men). The Perception of Threat from COVID-19 questionnaire, the Affective Balance Scale and the Mood Evaluation Scale were used. Results The results showed that the perception of threat from COVID-19 was related positively to negative affect and emotional signs, that is, sadness-depression, anxiety and anger-hostility. There was a direct positive effect of perceived threat from COVID-19 on sadness-depression, anxiety and anger-hostility moods, while anxiety and anger-hostility had a direct positive effect on perception of threat from the virus. Thus, there was a circular relationship, in which perceived threat influenced the presence of negative mood, and negative mood, in turn, linked to emotions of irritation and agitation from a present situation, promoted the feeling of threat. Conclusions A negative affective balance increases both one's perception of threat from COVID-19 and negative mood. Thus, knowing the emotional and cognitive effects on the population would enable measures to be put into service to facilitate their effective coping.

The burnout syndrome, which affects many healthcare workers, has recently attracted wide interest due to the severe repercussions related to its effects. Although job factors determine its development, not all individuals exposed to the same work conditions show burnout, which demonstrates the importance of individual variables, such as personality. The purpose of this study was to determine the personality characteristics of a sample of nursing professionals based on the Big Five model. After having determined the personality profiles, we aimed to analyze the differences in burnout and engagement based on those profiles. The sample was made up of 1236 nurses. An ad hoc questionnaire was prepared to collect the sociodemographic data and the Brief Burnout Questionnaire, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and the Big Five Inventory-10 were used. The results showed that the existence of burnout in this group of workers is associated negatively with extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience, and it is associated positively with the neuroticism personality trait. These personality factors showed the opposite patterns with regard to engagement. Three different personality profiles were also found in nursing personnel, in which professionals who had a profile marked by strong neuroticism and low scores on the rest of the personality traits were the most affected by burnout.

The ravages caused by the disease known as COVID-19 has led to a worldwide healthcare and social emergency requiring an effective combined effort from everyone to reduce contagion. Under these circumstances, the perception of the disease is going to have a relevant role in the individual's psychological adjustment. However, at the present time there is no validated instrument for evaluating adult perception of threat from COVID-19. Considering the importance of perception or representation of the disease in a state of social alert, our study intended to validate an instrument measuring the psychological process of the disease caused by the coronavirus . In view of the above, this study evaluated the factor structure and reliability of the version of the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ) for COVID-19 in a sample of adults. The sample consisted of 1014 Spanish adults (67.2% women and 32.8% men). The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a unidimensional model of the scale, which was the one that showed the best fit and explained 43.87% of the variance. This brief version has adequate psychometric properties and may be used to evaluate the perception of threat from COVID-19 in an adult Spanish population. The validation of this instrument contributes to progress in representation of COVID-19 in our culture.