COVID-19 news fatigue: Are people tired of hearing about the pandemic?

ABSTRACT

Introduction: COVID-19 changed normal routines across the world. During the beginning of the pandemic, everyone wanted to learn more about the virus. After 4 months, with death-tolls rising and isolation not being over anytime soon, psychological fatigue may have set in. To what degree has this psychological fatigue, with perspective of age groups along with the factor of personally knowing someone affected by COVID-19, impacted people's interest in the virus? Methods: We conducted an online survey using a Likert Scale from 1-5 to rate interest in hearing about COVID-19 related news when the pandemic started, around early March, and then to rate their interest in hearing about COVID-19 related news at the end of June. We divided respondents between two age groups, 25 and younger or older than 25, and whether or not they knew someone that has been affected by the virus. The survey was done online and was open to everyone who could access the survey online. Each participant answered the same two questions assessing their interest in March and then in June. Results: We received 410 survey responses which were divided into two groups according to age limit i.e., Younger Group (YG) with age ≤ 25 (n =133), and Older Group (OG) with age > 25 (n = 277). We found that both groups were interested (level 4/5 at a scale of 1-5) at the beginning of the pandemic (around the end of March) with a frequency of 65.4% (87/133) and 77.2% (214/277). In the span of 12 weeks, both groups' interest dropped drastically to 32.3% (43/133) and 41.5% (115/277) respectively with no statistically significant difference between the two groups when calculated with 2x2 Fischer exact test (P=0.7). When a variable of a loved one or an acquaintance known to have COVID-19 is applied, both groups behaved differently with a frequency of 26.2% (n= 20 vs 23 /87) and 41.1% (n= 27 vs 88/214) within the group with chi-square statistic of 7.8983, and p-value =.02 (significant at p < .05 with two-tailed analysis). Conclusions: Our results indicate fatigue from pandemic news all throughout our tested population. This fatigue persisted in the younger age group despite knowing someone with COVID-19, indicating either apathy or lack of awareness towards the pandemic. This needs to be further investigated as due to their asymptomatic carrier state accompanied by persistently low interest may result in a higher spread rate within the community.