This study examined the social representations of SARS-CoV-2 virus in Italy. We used the technique of free word association involving 1572 adults living in Italy. An open coding procedure and content analysis lead to the identification of 13 key topics representing the categorisation of concepts that emerged from the elicited words. The most common categories were spread of the virus, negative feelings, life during quarantine, and health consequences of the virus. Multidimensional scaling of co-occurrences of categories revealed these categories were grouped into four thematic areas. In addition, we found that the frequency of the categories of words was associated with gender, age, well-being, and mental health symptoms. By revealing complex and differentiated social representations, results from the present study provide a comprehensive insight on Italian people’s perception of COVID-19 outbreak in the Spring of 2020. This early study of social representations forms a useful basis for later studies, in order to understand how collective understandings and framings of risk have evolved across the duration of the pandemic.

本研究调查了 SARS-CoV-2 病毒在意大利的社会表征。我们使用了涉及 1572 名居住在意大利的成年人的自由词联想技术。一个开放的编码程序和内容分析导致了 13 个关键主题的识别，这些主题代表了从引出的单词中出现的概念的分类。最常见的类别是病毒的传播、负面情绪、隔离期间的生活以及病毒对健康的影响。类别共现的多维标度显示这些类别被分为四个主题领域。此外，我们发现单词类别的频率与性别、年龄、幸福感和心理健康症状有关。通过揭示复杂和差异化的社会表征，