Perception of the Severity of COVID-19 Contagion in the Risk Group. A Comparative Study at the First and the Ninth Months of Compulsory Isolation.

Abstract

After the continued extension of the quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was proposed to investigate the perception of the severity of contagion in the risk group of the population. For this purpose, a descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out through the online distribution of surveys, consisting of a sociodemographic questionnaire and questions related to the perception of the severity of the disease. Two comparative moments were considered: the first month and the ninth month of quarantine. The random sample consisted of 4268 individuals, of whom 1006 respondents stated that they were part of a risk group. Regarding the results, it was observed that although the perception of the risk of contagion decreased over the months, the highest risk remained "very high" (in the first month - 46.7 percent and in the ninth month - 38.5 percent), increasing the values of "medium risk" (in the first month - 20.4 percent; in the ninth month - 28.6 percent) and "high risk" (in the first month - 16.0 percent; in the ninth month - 20.8 percent). However, the difference was not statistically significant (the Wilcoxon rank test was applied and a value of p = 0.6 was obtained). In turn, the research allows us to compare the results with those of the perception of the population as a whole and compare the values of the risk group who contracted the virus, with whom they did not.