Evaluation of Fear and Peritraumatic Distress during Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread exponentially worldwide, especially in America. By mid-June, 2020, Brazil is one of the most affected countries with more than one million cases and up to 50,000 deaths. This study aims to assess the fear and peri-traumatic stress during the Covid-19 pandemics in Brazil, to enhance infection control methods, appropriate interventions, and public health policies. A cross-sectional survey has been conducted from April 12th to 18th using the Peri-Traumatic Distress Scale (CPDI) and the Fear Scale (FCV-19S) aiming to measure the peri-traumatic stress and fear as psychological reactions during the Covid-19 pandemic. For that purpose, an online spreadsheet was used to send the questionnaire and scales to a sample of 1844 participants as a collecting information tool. Both scales showed a correlation factor of (r=0,660). Results highlight significant gender differences as in both scales women’s mean scores are higher showing that it is paramount that women’s voices were represented in policy spaces as socially constructed gender roles place them in a strategic position to enhance multi-level interventions (primary and secondary effects of Covid-19), equitable policies, and new approaches to control the pandemic.

Perception of concern and associated factors during the COVID-19 pandemic: an epidemiological survey in a Brazilian municipality

“…Women are perceived as more aware of their health and more willing to receive health information 18 , probably because they more frequently seek health services and are more concerned about the health of their relatives. Women had a greater perception of concern, as also observed in studies conducted in Brazil 11 , Saudi Arabia 18 and China 19 and in a systematic review assessing the general population 20 .…”

“…A Brazilian study evaluated fear of COVID-19 and diverse psychological symptoms such as anxiety, depression, avoidance, physical symptoms, and functional loss. Among the 1,844 individuals interviewed, 41% and 13.2% reported moderate or severe fear of COVID-19, respectively 11 .…”

Fear of COVID‐19 Scale (FCV‐19S) across countries: Measurement invariance issues

“…The present study included the datasets from ten countries that have validated the FCV-19S in their respective countries. A short sampling description is given herewith, details can be found in the original papers (Abad et al, 2020;Broche-Pérez et al, 2020;Chang, Hou, et al, 2020;Harper et al, 2020;Mailliez et al, 2021;Masuyama et al, 2020;Pakpour, Griffiths, Chang, et al, 2020;Sakib et al, 2020;Soraci et al, 2020;Winter et al, 2020). More specifically, all the participants used in the present study were recruited through convenience sampling.…”

“…Indeed, in 3 months of the original Persian FCV-19S being published (Ahorsu, Lin, Imani, et al, 2020;, the scale had been validated in English [in the UK (Harper et al, 2020), in New Zealand (Winter et al, 2020)], Arabic (Alyami et al, 2020), Bangla (Sakib et al, 2020) Italian (Soraci et al, 2020), Hebrew (Bitan et al, 2020), Russian (Reznik et al, 2020), Turkish (Satici et al, 2020), Chinese (Pakpour, Griffiths, Chang, et al, 2020), Urdu, Malay (Pang 3419759811, Iran and Department of Nursing, School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden. Email: Pakpour_Amir@yahoo.com et al, 2020), Brazilian Portuguese (Abad et al, 2020), Cuban Spanish (Broche-Pérez et al, 2020) and Greek (Tsipropoulou et al, 2020).…”

“…, Brazilian Portuguese (Abad et al, 2020), Cuban Spanish (Broche-Pérez et al, 2020) and Greek (Tsipropoulou et al, 2020).…”