ABSTRACT
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted people's psychological functioning, including how they cope with anxiety. This study aimed to assess the role of coping styles in the relationship between COVID-19 anxiety and Washing ObsessiveCompulsive Disorder (W-OCD) symptoms. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 420 people living in Kashan city (Iran) from March to April, 2020. Participants were selected by the convenience sampling method due to the difficulties brought about by COVID-19 and completed the contamination subscale of the Padua Inventory, COVID-19 anxiety inventory, and coping strategies scale. Data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS-22. Results: The results revealed that emotion-focused, somatization and social support coping strategies were significantly associated with W-OCD symptoms. Also, there was a significant correlation between COVID-19 anxiety and the W-OCD symptoms. SEM results revealed that emotion-focused and somatization coping strategies positively mediated the relationship between COVID-19 and W-OCD symptoms. Conclusion: Emotion-focused and somatization coping strategies increase W-OCD symptoms following COVID-19 anxiety. Psychoeducation interventions addressing COVID-19's physical and psychological impacts on health, discriminating the rational and adaptive behavior and obsessive and compulsive behaviors, and restricting the information gathering from numerous sources, which may lead to increased negative emotions, might be helpful. © 2023 Bentham Science Publishers.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION – The concept of health literacy occurs more and more often not only among researchers but also in our everyday life. A good health literacy level is essential to make relevant decisions about our health and the health care system. The aim of our research is to validate the possible implementation of Hungarian version of the German HLS-CovidQ22 questionnaire, which explores the level of health literacy about the coronavirus in the general population. METHODS – After the linguistic validation of the translated questionnaire a sample of 120 university students responded the items. Afterward, we performed the exploratory factor analysis and computed psychometric variables. RESULTS – The Cronbach-α value was 0.938 for the entire questionnaire, while the sub-indexes were as follows: accessing α = 0.786, understanding α = 0.899, appraising α = 0.865 and applying α = 0.846. The Spearman–Brown coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.866, and the Guttman "split-half” coefficient was 0.861. The result of the Bartlett test proved to be significant (p < 0.001), the value of the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin criterion was 0.876. The 4 factors created cover 67.08% of the original 22 variables. CONCLUSION – Based on the statistical analyses, the Hungarian version of the HLS-Covid-Q22 questionnaire can reliably be used for measuring the subjective perception of health literacy about the coronavirus. The coronavirus remained a part of our everyday life thus, it is essential to develop appropriate defense strategies. In order to do it, we need to learn the level of health literacy among the general population. The HLS-Covid-Q22 questionnaire is one of the suitable means to achieve this specific knowledge. © 2022 Literatura Medica Publishing House. All rights reserved.