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[Background] Front-line medical staff are an important group in fighting against Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), and their mental health should not be ignored. [Objective] This study investigates the current situation and influencing factors of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among front-line anti-epidemic medical staff during COVID-19 epidemic. [Methods] Medical staff who had participated in fighting against the COVID-19 epidemic wereselected from three grade III Class A hospitals and four grade II Class A hospitals in a city of Hubei Province by convenient sampling method in May 2020. The survey was conducted online using the Post-traumatic Stress Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C) as the main survey tool to investigate current situation and characteristics of PTSD among these participants. A total of 1120 questionnaires were collected, of which 1071 were valid, and the effective rate was 95.6%. [Results] Of the 1071 participants, the average age was (32.59+/-5.21) years;the ratio of male to female was 1: 5.02;the ratio of doctor to nurse was 1:5.8;nearly 70% participants came from grade III Class A hospitals;married participants accounted for 75.4%;most of them held a bachelor degree or above (86.5%);members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) accounted for 22.9%;50.9% had junior titles;the working years were mainly 5-10 years (42.8%);more than 80.0% participants volunteered to join the front-line fight;95.1% participants received family support;43.0% participated in rescue missions;78.1% participants fought the epidemic in their own hospitals;more than 60% participants considered the workload was greater than before;34.4% participants fought in the front-line for 2-4 weeks, and 23.5% participants did for more than 6 weeks. There were 111 cases of positive PTSD syndromes (PCL-C total score >=38) with an overall positive rate of 10.4%, and the scores of reexperience [1.40 (1.00, 1.80)] and hypervigilance [1.40 (1.00, 2.00)] were higher than the score of avoidance [1.14 (1.00, 2.57)]. The results of univariate analysis revealed that PTSD occurred differently among participants grouped by age, political affiliation, working years, anti-epidemic activities location, accumulated working hours in fighting against COVID-19, having child parenting duty, voluntariness, family support, whether family members participated in front-line activities, and rescue mission assignment (P<0.05). The results of logistic regression analysis showed that the incidence rates of reporting PTSD syndromes in medical personnel aged 31-40 years (OR=0.346, 95%CI: 0.164-0.730) and aged 41 years and above (OR=0.513, 95%CI: 0.319-0.823) were lower than that in those aged 20-30 years;the incidence rates of reporting PTSD syndromes in medical staff who were CPC members (OR=0.499, 95%CI: 0.274-0.909), volunteered to participate (OR=0.584, 95%CI: 0.360-0.945), and received family support (OR=0.453, 95%CI: 0.222-0.921) were lower than those did not (P<0.05);the incidence rates of reporting PTSD syndromes among medical workers who had child parenting duty (OR=2.372, 95%CI: 1.392-4.042), whose family members participated in front-line activities (OR=1.709, 95%CI: 1.135-2.575), and who participated in rescue missions (OR=1.705, 95%CI: 1.133-2.565) were higher than those who did not (P<0.05). [Conclusion] The positive PTSD syndrome rate is 10.4% in the front-line anti-epidemic medical staff. Age, political affiliation, voluntariness, family support, having child parenting duty, with a family members participating in the fight, and rescue mission assignment are the influencing factors of PTSD.Copyright © 2021, Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Past research suggests that conservatives are usually more threat-sensitive than liberals are. Yet during the COVID-19 pandemic, conservatives consistently underestimated the risk from the virus. To reconcile this paradox, we introduce a model of identity-based risk perception (IRP). This model posits that risk perceptions depend not only on objective risk but also on people's political identity and whether the risk pertains to their group identity (group risk) versus individual identity (individual risk). When asked about the group risk posed by a threat ("How many Americans will die of COVID-19?"), conservatives focus on their national pride and underestimate the risk of contracting the virus compared to liberals. However, when asked about individual risk from the same threat ("What is the probability of an individual dying of COVID-19?"), conservatives focus on individual mortality threat and overestimate the risk of succumbing to the virus compared to liberals. Three national surveys support the IRP model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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Conspiracy theories have accrued around recent world events, and many of them have been endorsed by leaders seeking to garner support. Drawing from compensatory control theory, we argue a reduced sense of control will increase support for leaders who use conspiratorial rhetoric. Moreover, we posit that the congruence between one's political identity and a leader's conspiratorial rhetoric is an important consideration with regard to when this effect will emerge. Studies 1a and 1b established causality by directly manipulating sense of control and finding greater support for conspiratorial leaders in the lacking vs. having control condition. Studies 2 and 3 examined the effects of real-world events that are posited to reduce a sense of control, along with the moderating effect of political identity. Study 2 showed, in two waves collected before and during COVID-19 lockdowns, that the lockdowns reduced a sense of control. Congruently, individuals supported leaders espousing a COVID-19 conspiracy theory more during the lockdowns than before. In addition, for leaders espousing conspiratorial rhetoric related to paid protests, Republicans exhibited greater support during than before the lockdown;however, the lockdown did not affect Democrats' support. Study 3 showed, in two waves collected before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, that Biden supporters felt greater control after the election and decreased their support for conspiratorial leaders. Trump supporters' sense of control did not change, and concurrently they did not change their support for conspiratorial leaders. Implications are discussed for leadership during times of crisis and beyond.
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BACKGROUND: Home Based Primary Care (HBPC) is a multidisciplinary program in the VA which provides primary care in the patients' homes. There are some patients in the Puget Sound HBPC program who have refused the Covid vaccine, which increases their risk of serious illness and death. This Quality Improvement Program was intended to increase uptake of the Covid vaccine in Veterans who initially refused it. METHODS: Planned Activity: We will ask questions, reserve judgment, share the science, be honest and supportive, and model behavior. SMART goal: (specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time bound): Reduce refusals of Covid vaccine by 50% in 4 months. A spreadsheet was created in a secure drive in which the nurses documented patients who refused the Covid-19 vaccine and the reason the patient gave for refusing. The HBPC team met monthly for four months to document any patients who agreed to be vaccinated and reasons for agreeing, and to discuss interventions that were well-received. RESULTS: The patient census in the HBPC program at the start of the project was 458 patients. 422 patients (92%) were vaccinated during the initial vaccination effort by HBPC. 36 patients refused the vaccines against Covid-19 (8%). Among those who refused vaccination, lack of trust of the government or the vaccine itself were the most common reasons, with smaller numbers endorsing conspiracy theories or citing political identification. Over the course of our project a total of four patients died (11.1%). Two patients died of Covid (5.5%), one died of cancer (2.8%) and one died of a PEA arrest (2.8%). A total of 6 patients (16.7%) accepted vaccination over the course of the project. 26 patients (72.2%) remained unvaccinated. Two patients accepted because being vaccinated was a requirement;one to travel and one to be accepted for an inpatient respite stay. One patient was vaccinated after he received information from a professional society which recommended vaccination. Two patients accepted vaccination (5.5%) due to education from the HBPC team and from family. One patient was vaccinated during an inpatient stay in a community hospital. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccination against Covid-19 was widely accepted in this patient population of elderly Veterans with multiple medical problems, with a vaccination rate of 92%.Among those who refused vaccination, lack of trust of the government or the vaccine itself were the most common reasons, with smaller numbers endorsing conspiracy theories or citing political identification. Our intervention did not meet the goal of increasing vaccine uptake by 50%. Few patients who initially refused vaccination changed their minds. There is very little medical research about interventions for vaccine hesitancy, with much of the current published literature on this topic consisting of expert opinion. The literature that is available suggests that some interventions can be counterproductive. Mandates may be effective because individuals are not required to change their minds.
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This research examines how consumers evaluate the fairness of price increases during collective stress situations. Across three collective stress situations (COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests, and economic downturn), the authors confirm that a collective stress situation evokes feeling of nostalgia as a coping mechanism. When the collective stress situation is more severe, it heightens feelings of nostalgia, which then enhances consumer empathy, such that people tend to infer benevolent motives for a price increase. That is, consumers perceive the price increase as more fair. This research also reveals how a consumer’s political identity can moderate the impact of the perceived severity of the collective stress situation on nostalgia and thus price fairness. As a collective stress situation becomes more severe, conservatives (vs. liberals) experience greater nostalgia, leading to higher perceived fairness of price increases.
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Since 2015, Donald Trump, his administration and supporters have repeatedly abused the history of Second World War Japanese American incarceration. In contrast to preceding Presidents who recognised the miscarriage of justice authorised by Franklin Roosevelt, Trump and his administration have used this history to justify racism. All post-war presidents before Trump, regardless of political affiliation, agreed what happened under Executive Order 9066 was wrong and should never be repeated. Donald Trump and his administration have, by contrast, not only failed to condemn the incarceration but instead attempted to use test cases brought against the United States government during the war as questionable legal precedent to justify racist policies. The travel ban for those travelling to the USA from Muslim majority countries was compared to Executive Order 9066;Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents and placing them in separate detention centres was disturbingly similar to the internment of orphans of Japanese parentage at Manzanar children’s village;and Trump’s use of terms like ‘China virus’ during the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in attacks on Asian Americans. This article considers Asian American responses to these three case studies of Trump’s anti-Asian rhetoric and abuse of the history of Japanese American incarceration.
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Partisan differences in attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic and toward the appropriateness of local policies requiring masks, social distancing, and vaccines are apparent in the United states. Previous research suggests that areas with a higher Republican vote share may experience more COVID-19 mortality, potentially as a consequence of these differences. In this observational study that captured data from a majority of Us counties, we compared the number of COVID-19 deaths through October 31, 2021, among counties with differing levels of Republican vote share, using 2020 presidential election returns to characterize county political affiliation. Our analyses controlled for demographic characteristics and social determinants likely to influence COVID-19 transmission and outcomes using state fixed effects. We found a positive dose-response relationship between county-level Republican vote share and county-level COVID-19 mortality. Majority Republican counties experienced 72.9 additional deaths per 100,000 people relative to majority Democratic counties during the study period, and COVID-19 vaccine uptake explains approximately 10 percent of the difference. Our findings suggest that county-level voting behavior may act as a proxy for compliance with and support of public health measures that would protect residents from COVID-19.
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On college campuses, effective management of vaccine-preventable transmissible pathogens requires understanding student vaccination intentions. This is necessary for developing and tailoring health messaging to maximize uptake of health information and vaccines. The current study explored students' beliefs and attitudes about vaccines in general, and the new COVID-19 vaccines specifically. This study provides insights into effective health messaging needed to rapidly increase COVID-19 vaccination on college campuses-information that will continue to be informative in future academic years across a broad scope of pathogens. Data were collected from 696 undergraduate students ages 18-29 years old enrolled in a large public university in the Northeast during fall 2020. Data were collected via an online survey. Overall, we found COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in college students correlated strongly with some concerns about vaccines in general as well as with concerns specific to COVID-19 vaccines. Taken together, these results provide further insight for message development and delivery and can inform more effective interventions to advance critical public health outcomes on college campuses beyond the current pandemic.
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This paper examines the social-psychological mechanisms behind how citizens deal with uncertainties stemming from the COVID-19 vaccine developments in societies with prominent social/political cleavages. We argue that existing social/political tensions influence individuals’ trust in institutions that are responsible for coping with crises through a motivated reasoning mechanism, which eventually shapes citizens’ COVID-19 vaccine intentions. Using a nationally representative face-to-face survey conducted in the pre-vaccination period in Turkey, we demonstrate that both self-identifying as a Kurd or feeling close to an opposition party are associated with lower trust in institutions actively dealing with the pandemic, which in turn, results in weaker intentions for getting vaccinated. Testing our full theoretical model reveals that while ethnic and partisan identities do not directly influence vaccine intentions, they exhibit an indirect negative effect via institutional trust impeding the fight against the pandemic. We show that it is difficult to tackle a sudden collective threat that requires public cooperation with health policies if the society is strongly polarized. Our findings offer key policy implications for the vaccination phase of the pandemic, and contribute to the domains of public health, conflict studies and individual judgment and decision-making about social risks. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
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The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in Iran forced considerable changes in many parts of Iranians' personal and social lives, including their religious lives, as health-related precautions affected places of worship. The pandemic has also been an important issue for Iranian religious authorities, for whom overseeing sacred spaces and mass rituals constitute an important element of strengthening the nation's religious identity and legitimizing political power. This article examines the positions of Shi'i clerics toward various problems arising from the Covid-19 pandemic in its early phases, based on fatwas and other public statements.
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As the world continues to respond to the spread of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease commonly known as COVID-19), it has become clear that one of the most effective strategies for curbing the pandemic is the COVID-19 vaccine. However, a major challenge that health organizations face when advocating for the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine is the spread of related misinformation and conspiracy theories. This study examines factors that influence vaccine hesitancy using two online survey samples, one convenience and one nationally representative, collected in the early summer of 2020 during the height of the second peak of coronavirus cases in the United States. Given extant literature on vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy belief, we expect that three factors-conspiracy theory belief, political identity, and anti-intellectualism-have served to reduce COVID-19 vaccination likelihood. Accordingly, across our two independent samples we find that anti-intellectualism, conspiratorial predispositions, and COVID-19 conspiracy theory belief are the strongest and most consistent predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Notably, we also find that partisanship and political ideology are inconsistently significant predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy once conspiracy theory beliefs, anti-intellectualism, and control variables are accounted for in the models. When political tendencies are significant, they demonstrate a relatively small substantive association with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. We discuss implications for ongoing mass vaccination efforts, continued widespread vaccine hesitancy, and related political attitudes.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Vaccines , COVID-19 Vaccines , Humans , Pandemics/prevention & control , SARS-CoV-2 , United StatesABSTRACT
Drawing on social identity theory and research on digital media and polarization, this study uses a quasi-experimental design with a random sample (n = 3304) to provide causal evidence on perceptions of who is to blame for the initial spread of COVID-19 in India. According blame to three different social and political entities-Tablighi Jamaat (a Muslim group), the Modi government, and migrant workers (a heterogeneous group)-are the dependent variables in three OLS regression models testing the effect of the no-blame treatment, controlling for Facebook use, social identity (religion), vote in the 2019 national election, and other demographics. Results show respondents in the treatment group were more likely to allay blame, affective polarization (dislike for outgroup members) was social identity based, not partisan based, and Facebook/Instagram use was not significant. Congress and United Progressive Alliance voters in 2019 were less likely to blame the Modi government for the initial spread. Unlike extant research in western contexts, affective and political polarization appear to be distinct concepts in India where social identity complexity is important. This study of the first wave informs perceptions of blame in future waves, which are discussed in conclusion along with questions for future research.
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Research suggests political identity has strong influence over individuals' attitudes and beliefs, which in turn can affect their behavior. Likewise, firsthand experience with an issue can also affect attitudes and beliefs. A large (N = 6,383) survey (Pew Research and Ipsos W64) of Americans was analyzed to investigate the effects of both political identity (i.e., Democrat or Republican) and personal impact (i.e., whether they suffered job or income loss) on individuals' reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that political identity and personal impact influenced the American public's attitudes about and response to COVID-19. Consistent with prior research, political identity exerted a strong influence on self-reports of emotional distress, threat perception, discomfort with exposure, support for restrictions, and perception of under/overreaction by individuals and institutions. The difference between Democrats and Republican responses were consistent with their normative value differences and with the contemporary partisan messaging. Personal impact exerted a comparatively weaker influence on reported emotional distress and threat perception. Both factors had a weak influence on appraisal of individual and government responses. The dominating influence of political identity carried over into the bivariate relations among these self-reported attitudes and responses. In particular, the appraisal of government response divided along party lines, tied to opposing views of whether there has been over- or under-reaction to the pandemic. The dominance of political identity has important implications for crisis management and reflects the influence of normative value differences between the parties, partisan messaging on the pandemic, and polarization in American politics.