COVID‐19: Concerns and behaviours in Croatia

Abstract

Objectives. The COVID-19 pandemic has created uncertainty that has heightened fear and worry worldwide, thus elevating the potential for a growth in anxiety. This study aims to examine changes in levels of COVID-19 concern and safety behaviours among persons living in Croatia during the period in which the first COVID-19 case was identified and when the country recorded its first fatality. These changes were examined with respect to gender and family circumstances. Design. The repeated cross-sectional data were conducted over two time points over the 3 weeks (N 1 = 888; N 2 = 966). Methods. Participants completed online questionnaire regarding various COVID-19 concerns and safety behaviours aimed at disease prevention. Results. Findings demonstrate dramatic increase in concern and safety behaviours among participants during the 3 weeks between the first identified case and the first fatality. The results suggest that parents, and mothers especially, represent the most concerned group, regardless of age. People with chronic health conditions also expressed greater concern and safety behaviour than healthy participants, but with small effect size. Conclusion. These findings highlight the importance of developing clear guidelines for alleviating the negative effects on mental health through effective communication strategies that minimize fear and emphasize positive behavioural change.

The vital role of health psychology in the response to COVID‐19

“…To date, we have published 17 COVID-19 papers (Bacon & Corr, 2020;Gibson Miller et al, 2020;Grover, McClelland, & Furnham, 2020;Horesh, Kapel Lev-Ari, & Hasson-Ohayon, 2020;Howard, 2020;Lades, Laffan, Daly, & Delaney, 2020;Lauri Korajlija & Jokic-Begic, 2020;Lin et al, 2020;Marinthe, Brown, Delouvee, & Jolley, 2020;McElroy et al, 2020;Niepel, Kranz, Borgonovi, Emslander, & Greiff, 2020;Norman, Wilding, & Conner, 2020;Olagoke, Olagoke, & Hughes, 2020;Rubaltelli, Tedaldi, Orabona, & Scrimin, 2020;Shevlin et al, 2020;Williams et al, 2020), which have addressed a variety of topics including: the use theoretical models (COM-B and social cognition models) to understand and predict COVID-19 health behaviours (Gibson Miller et al, 2020;Lin et al, 2020;Norman et al, 2020), risk perception (Niepel et al, 2020;Olagoke et al, 2020), and psychological distress (Horesh et al, 2020;Lades et al, 2020;McElroy et al, 2020;Shevlin et al, 2020). presented a systematic method for rapidly responding to priority SARS-CoV-2 policy questions.…”

Cyberchondria in the age of COVID-19

“…To date (May 25, 2020), the number of patients with COVID-19 in Croatia is among the lowest in Europe (542/million inhabitants, fatality rate is 23/million), a trend that has been attributed to the implementation of quarantine-like measures at an early stage. Research examining psychological reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia [ 10 ] demonstrated a dramatic increase in concern and safety behaviours among participants during the three-week period between the first identified case and the first fatality. Interestingly, there is a discordance between those who are at most risk for serious consequences of the disease and those who are at greatest risk for maladaptive anxiety.…”

The Psychological Impact of COVID-19 in Italy: Worry Leads to Protective Behavior, but at the Cost of Anxiety

“…Thus, we also hypothesized (2) that high levels of concern and worry for COVID-19 could have an impact on the protective behaviors ( Brooks et al, 2020 ; Li et al, 2020c ) by enhancing an abnormal illness behavior ( Lipowski, 1987 ) toward fueling hypochondriacal concerns or avoid behavioral recommendations. In fact, recent studies limited to parents and families, suggest that anxiety levels are connected to safety behaviors, but the health risks and fear connected to COVID-19 influence the rates of stress ( Lauri Korajlija and Jokic-Begic, 2020 ; Spinelli et al, 2020 ). Most of the studies concerning previous pandemics had focused on either the cognitive aspects related to what the population knew about the illness and what people really did to prevent the spread of the pandemic ( Barr et al, 2008 ), or on the affective aspects of the disaster, investigating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or anxiety ( Goodwin et al, 2011 ; Karademas et al, 2013 ).…”