Associations between anxiety and the willingness to be exposed to COVID-19 risk among French young adults during the first pandemic wave.

Fabrice Etilé,Pierre-Yves Geoffard

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0262368

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has generated significant uncertainty about the future, especially for young adults. Health and economic threats, as well as more diffuse concerns about the consequences of COVID-19, can trigger feelings of anxiety, leading individuals to adopt uncertainty-reducing behaviours. We tested whether anxiety was associated with an increase in willingness to be exposed to the risk of COVID-19 infection (WiRE) using an online survey administered to 3,110 French individuals aged between 18 and 35 years old during the first pandemic wave and lockdown period (April 2020). Overall, 56.5% of the sample declared a positive WiRE. A one standard deviation increase in psychological state anxiety raised the WiRE by +3.9 pp (95% CI [+1.6, 6.2]). Unemployment was associated with a higher WiRE (+8.2 percentage points (pp); 95% CI [+0.9, 15.4]). One standard deviation increases in perceived hospitalisation risk and in income (+1160€) were associated with a -4.1 pp (95% CI [-6.2, 2.1]) decrease in the WiRE and +2.7 pp increase (95% CI [+1.1, 4.4]), respectively. Overall, our results suggest that both psychological anxiety and the prospect of economic losses can undermine young adults’ adherence to physical distancing recommendations. Public policies targeting young adults must consider both their economic situation and their mental health, and they must use uncertainty-reducing communication strategies.

Highlights

Even after vaccines become widely available, many countries implement stringent restrictions on individuals’ freedom of movement and socialisation to “flatten” the epidemic waves of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
We examined whether psychological state anxiety had an independent direct association with willingness to risk exposure (WiRE), and whether this association was partly explained by variations in health risk beliefs and economic conditions
We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using data from an online survey that was composed of an experimental investigation on subjective identity, and a general questionnaire including a COVID-19 module

Summary

Introduction

Even after vaccines become widely available, many countries implement stringent restrictions on individuals’ freedom of movement and socialisation to “flatten” the epidemic waves of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. They switch to lighter containment strategies based on physical distancing, population testing, contact tracing, isolation, treatment. While this approach has helped balance social and economic needs within the capacity of the health system [1,2,3,4], its effectiveness crucially depends on the willingness of individuals to comply. The funders have no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

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