Health anxiety and attentional bias toward virus-related stimuli during the COVID-19 pandemic

Loreta Cannito,Adolfo Di Crosta,Stefano Anzani,Rocco Palumbo,Alberto Di Domenico,Irene Ceccato,Riccardo Palumbo,Pasquale La Malva

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-73599-8

Abstract

After the COVID-19 worldwide spread, evidence suggested a vast diffusion of negative consequences on people's mental health. Together with depression and sleep difficulties, anxiety symptoms seem to be the most diffused clinical outcome. The current contribution aimed to examine attentional bias for virus-related stimuli in people varying in their degree of health anxiety (HA). Consistent with previous literature, it was hypothesized that higher HA would predict attentional bias, tested using a visual dot-probe task, to virus-related stimuli. Participants were 132 Italian individuals that participated in the study during the lockdown phase in Italy. Results indicated that the HA level predicts attentional bias toward virus-related objects. This relationship is double mediated by the belief of contagion and by the consequences of contagion as assessed through a recent questionnaire developed to measure the fear for COVID-19. These findings are discussed in the context of cognitive-behavioral conceptualizations of anxiety suggesting a risk for a loop effect. Future research directions are outlined.

Highlights

After the COVID-19 worldwide spread, evidence suggested a vast diffusion of negative consequences on people’s mental health
This study aims to investigate how, during the lockdown phase in Italy, health anxiety (HA) levels were associated with an attentional bias toward virus-related stimuli and to what extent this relationship was mediated by specific fear of contagion for COVID-19
This study primarily aims to investigate the impact of health anxiety on attentional bias toward virus-related stimuli during the COVID-19 pandemic in the nonclinical population

Summary

Introduction

After the COVID-19 worldwide spread, evidence suggested a vast diffusion of negative consequences on people’s mental health. Results indicated that the HA level predicts attentional bias toward virus-related objects This relationship is double mediated by the belief of contagion and by the consequences of contagion as assessed through a recent questionnaire developed to measure the fear for COVID-19. Among other possible causes of increased anxiety levels, one of the most cited and shared is the fear of contagion, which led researchers to develop specific instruments to assess it[9,10] These findings are not unexpected considering that fear is an evolutionary adaptive response to the presence of a dangerous and threatening stimulus that functionally motivates individuals to behave r esponsibly[11]. This study aims to investigate how, during the lockdown phase in Italy, HA levels were associated with an attentional bias toward virus-related stimuli and to what extent this relationship was mediated by specific fear of contagion for COVID-19

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