Abstract

Objectives

To describe and explain peoples’ developing threat appraisal and representations of the novel illness COVID-19 over the first months of the pandemic. The Common-Sense Model of illness perceptions provided the theoretical framework.

Design

A cross-sectional study with 511 respondents and a follow-up study 4 months later on 422 respondents completing an online survey measuring demographic factors, media consumption, self-assessed health, experience with the disease, health anxiety, COVID-19 threat, worries and cognitive and emotional illness representations.

Results

Health anxiety, media consumption, female gender, lower self-assessed health, knowing a deceased COVID-19 patient and being infected explained variance in threat appraisal. Worries represented 2 factors: psychosocial and existential. Threat appraisal and worries explained variance in illness representations. Representations of the disease worsened and started stabilizing over time. Emotional representations were exceptionally stable and explainable by threat appraisals.

Conclusions

These studies revealed the initial stages of developing representations of a new disease in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gaining insights into those representations is key to understanding, predicting and modifying behavioral and mental responses to the pandemic.

中文翻译：

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理解 COVID-19：对发展疾病表征初始阶段的纵向调查

摘要

目标

描述和解释人们在大流行的头几个月对新型疾病 COVID-19 的发展威胁评估和陈述。疾病认知的常识模型提供了理论框架。

设计

对 511 名受访者进行的横断面研究和 4 个月后对 422 名受访者进行的后续研究完成了一项在线调查，该调查衡量人口因素、媒体消费、自我评估的健康状况、疾病经历、健康焦虑、COVID-19 威胁、担忧以及认知和情绪疾病的表现。

结果

健康焦虑、媒体消费、女性、较低的自我评估健康、认识已故的 COVID-19 患者和被感染解释了威胁评估中的差异。忧虑代表两个因素：社会心理和存在主义。威胁评估和担忧解释了疾病表现的差异。随着时间的推移，疾病的表现恶化并开始稳定下来。情绪表现异常稳定，可以通过威胁评估来解释。

结论

这些研究揭示了在 COVID-19 大流行的背景下发展新疾病表征的初始阶段。深入了解这些表现是理解、预测和改变对大流行病的行为和心理反应的关键。