Public reactions to the disaster is the central topic of this scientific publication.
Abstract
A new coronavirus emerged in December 2019 and quickly spread globally, causing unprecedented social, psychological, and economic damage. This study aimed to investigate people’s emotional reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. The dataset for this study consisted of 2,013 adults (962 males and 1,053 females) in four countries (Italy, Lebanon, Portugal, and Serbia). A snowball sampling technique that focused on recruiting the general public living in countries during the COVID-19 epidemic was utilized. An online survey was disseminated at the same time, in March–April 2020, when many countries were exposed to COVID-19. Results indicated that, with regard to gender, females had more psychological reactions to COVID-19 than did males. People who had one child were more stressed than people with no children. Extensive knowledge of COVID-19 was found to trigger more anxiety. Results showed that stress and overall emotional reactions increased with age. The findings can be used to develop psychological interventions to improve mental health and psychological resilience during the COVID-19 epidemic. Keywords: pandemic; stress; anxiety; depression; adult, COVID-19; emotion; disaster; disease.
Conclusions
This study provides timely assessment of the risk perception of adults during the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy, Lebanon, Portugal, and Serbia. During the study, the respondents rated their psychological situation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic can provide valuable insights into how to handle future epidemics. These include proper hand hygiene, isolation of infected individuals, isolation of individuals with suspected symptoms or fever, and preventing direct contact with suspected animal reservoir hosts. Our results have several immediate and significant public health implications. First, female gender, being more educated and knowledgeable, married, older, and geographical differences were associated with a greater psychological impact of the outbreak and higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression at various levels. Second, male gender, being single, being less educated and knowledgeable, younger, and geographic differences were associated with a smaller psychological impact of the outbreak and lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression at various levels. Specific conditions of countries could be associated with lower or higher psychological impacts. Countries with aging populations and social and political issues may have more stress, anxiety, and depression while countries with younger populations and few political problems may have less psychological impact related to pandemic diseases. More research should be carried out on the development of effective methods to provide early and timely detection of such diseases’ psychological symptoms. A number of future studies can be conducted to collect more scientific information on this area. First of all, research based on direct experience with the disease can be conducted in the future, which can make a significant contribution to better understanding adults or children’s fear of pandemics. Second, the relationship between the economic situation and emotional reactions of participants to the pandemic can be investigated. Our findings can be used to formulate psychological interventions to improve mental health and psychological resilience during the COVID-19 epidemic, such as cognitive behavior therapy and mindfulness-based therapy (Ho et al. Citation2020). Our findings directly inform on the emotional reactions during the COVID-19 outbreak. This study has several limitations. In consideration of the time-sensitivity of the COVID-19 outbreak, we adopted an online survey with snowball sampling strategy. This sampling strategy is not based on a random selection; thus, the study populations do not reflect the actual pattern of the general population. To preserve individual rights, we were not allowed to collect personal information from the respondents. As our study does not reflect the actual pattern of the general population, the conclusion was less generalizable. Furthermore, a longitudinal study would show temporal changes during the COVID-19 pandemic (Wang et al. Citation2020b). Besides this, the participants’ self-reported levels of emotional reactions may be insufficient evidence to fully assess their psychological situation.
How to cite
Reference – Öcal, A., Cvetković, V. M., Baytiyeh, H., Tedim, F. M. S., & Zečević, M. (2020). Public reactions to the disaster COVID-19: a comparative study in Italy, Lebanon, Portugal, and Serbia. Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk, 11(1), 1864-1885. doi:10.1080/19475705.2020.1811405
