ABSTRACT
To slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the German government released the 'Corona-Warn-App', a smartphone application that warns users if they have come into contact with other users tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Since using the 'Corona-Warn-App' is health-relevant behavior, it is essential to understand who is (and who is not) using it and why. In N = 1972 German adults, we found that non-users were on average older, female, healthier, in training and had low general trust in others. The most frequently named reasons by non-users were privacy concerns, doubts about the effectiveness of the app and lack of technical equipment.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/prevention & control , Communicable Disease Control/methods , Contact Tracing/methods , Disease Outbreaks/prevention & control , Population Surveillance/methods , Smartphone/statistics & numerical data , Adult , Age Factors , COVID-19/epidemiology , Female , Germany , Health Status , Humans , Mobile Applications/statistics & numerical data , Pandemics , SARS-CoV-2 , Sex Factors , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) is widely used to measure emotional experiences, but not much is known about its cross-cultural utility. The present study evaluated the measurement invariance of the SPANE across adult samples (N = 12,635; age range = 18-85 years; 58.2% female) from 13 countries (China, Colombia, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, and the United States). Configural and partial scalar invariance of the SPANE were supported. Three items capturing specific negative emotions (sad, afraid, and angry) were found to be culturally noninvariant. Our findings suggest that the SPANE's positive emotion terms and general negative emotion terms (e.g., negative and unpleasant) might be more suitable for cross-cultural studies on emotions and well-being, whereas caution is needed when comparing countries using the SPANE's specific negative emotion items.
Subject(s)
Anger , Cross-Cultural Comparison , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Factor Analysis, Statistical , Female , Germany , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Psychometrics , Surveys and Questionnaires , United States , Young AdultABSTRACT
RATIONALE: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has dramatically altered people's social lives due to social restriction measures taken to control the coronavirus spread. Early on, increased loneliness has been publicly discussed as a harmful psychological side effect of these measures. Due to the serious adverse health consequences of loneliness, it is essential to take these concerns seriously and investigate them systematically to allow for evidence-based decision making. Thus far, however, high-resolution empirical evidence of such harmful side effects is rare. METHODS: The present preregistered large-scale daily diary study assessed daily loneliness in 4,844 German adults between March 16 and April 12, 2020. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Daily loneliness slightly increased during the first two weeks since implementing the pandemic-related measures and slightly decreased thereafter. With increasing age, daily loneliness increased more strongly over the four weeks. Moreover, daily loneliness increased more strongly for parents compared to people without children. Thus, despite some increases in loneliness in some individuals, there was no linear increase in loneliness in response to the first pandemic-related measures in the present sample.