Psychological Aspects of Media Communication during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Insights from Healthcare and Pharmacy Specialists in Lithuania.

Nida Žemaitienė,Laura Digrytė-Šertvytienė,Kastytis Šmigelskas,Vilma Miglinė,Milda Kukulskienė,Gabrielė Urbonaitė,Loreta Kubilienė,Aušra Norė

doi:10.3390/healthcare9101297

Nida Žemaitienė, Laura Digrytė-Šertvytienė + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9101297

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Abstract

In the setting of disasters, people seek information as they hope that knowledge will provide security. This makes the media a critical source of crisis exposure. The aim of the study described in this article was to analyze COVID-19 pandemic-related psychological aspects of media use by healthcare and pharmacy workers in Lithuania and to reveal the subjective effects of media consumption on their psychological well-being. 967 healthcare workers and pharmacists in Lithuania completed an electronic survey, which consisted of questions about the changes in well-being experienced since the beginning of the lockdown and media use in the search for information on COVID-19. It was found that communication might have ambiguous effects on psychological well-being. Excessive, unreliable, misleading, contradictory information and “catastrophizing” were subjectively related to impaired psychological well-being. Objective and reliable, relevant, clear, timely, hopeful and supportive information had a subjective positive effect. Seeking COVID-19-related information many times a day was associated with increased fear of becoming infected with COVID-19, feeling unable to control the risk of contracting COVID-19, fear of infecting relatives with COVID-19 and feeling that other people would avoid interaction with healthcare workers and pharmacists because of their job. General browsing was not consistently associated with COVID-19-related fears.

Highlights

In the setting of natural disasters, such as COVID-19 pandemic, people are more likely to seek information [1], as dependency on the media is heightened during a period of societal change or conflict [2]
Seeking COVID-19-related information in the media many times a day was associated with increased fear of becoming infected with COVID-19 during the pandemic (OR = 2.68), feeling unable to control the risk of COVID-19 (OR = 1.70), fear of infecting relatives with COVID-19 (OR = 2.76) and feeling that other people would avoid interaction with them because of their job (OR = 1.90)
It should be noted that casual, not necessarily pandemic-related browsing was consistently not associated with any type of COVID-19-related fears (p > 0.05)

Summary

Introduction

In the setting of natural disasters, such as COVID-19 pandemic, people are more likely to seek information [1], as dependency on the media is heightened during a period of societal change or conflict [2]. This makes the media a critical source of crisis exposure. People hope that knowledge will provide security and help orient themselves in new and unfamiliar situations [2] In such cases, the media provides an irreplaceable opportunity to inform the public immediately, while at the same time it can become an extremely powerful source of stress, that leads to a significant deterioration in the overall public mental health [3]. It should be borne in mind that when people are scared or upset, they find it more difficult to understand the information they receive; and when they receive it, they rely on negative information more than positive one [15]

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