Abstract
Due to COVID-19 spreading in Italy, on March 11 the Prime Minister of Italy declared a lockdown and imposed severe restrictive measures impacting citizens’ freedom at several levels. People were required to stay at home and go out only to satisfy basic needs. Several risk models have postulated a link among online searching behavior, affect, anxiety, and complaints by individuals toward government restrictions (GR), which emerged as also related to an increased perception of knowledge toward risk. However, to date, no study has addressed how these key risk-related aspects (i.e., affect, anxiety, perceived knowledge on risk, and risk dimensions) can act jointly to orient online health information-seeking behavior, and people’s complaints toward GR imposed during the lockdown. This study investigated the mechanisms underlying online health information-seeking behavior and people’s complaints toward the government’s restrictions during a COVID-19 emergency in the Italian population. Drawing from the health belief model (HBM), which postulates a link between sociodemographic variables, risk, and affect dimensions in emergency, we assumed risk factors as predictors of affect and anxiety, which, in turn, were posited as mediators between risk dimensions, online health information-seeking behavior, and complaints toward GR. Participants (1,031) were involved during the first week of the quarantine (March 11–18) and completed an online survey composed of (i) an adapted version of the Italian Risk Perception Questionnaire; (ii) the Italian Positive (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) Schedule (PANAS-10); (iii) the State Anxiety Scale (STAI-Y1); (iv) ad hoc personal knowledge measure about novel coronavirus; (v) ad hoc item measuring information search behavior regarding the novel coronavirus; (vi) ad hoc measure of the complains regarding GR; and (vii) sociodemographic questions. General linear models and structural equation modeling (SEM) were carried out to test the model. Sociodemographic and cognitive factors predicted the participants’ affect and anxiety, which, in turn, motivated and fully mediated both information search behavior and complaint toward GR. This research can offer useful suggestions for policy-makers during the COVID-19 emergency, and it advanced the knowledge on the risk–emotion link in emergency situations.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Health Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
In line with health belief model (HBM) and literature, major evidence linking cognitive risk dimensions and affect, this study aimed to explore the following hypotheses: sociodemographic factors have an impact on risk perception and perceived risk knowledge (Hp1); more precisely, the research expects that age (Hp1a) and education (Hp1b) will negatively affect risk perception and positively risk knowledge; it is hypothesized that women will have a worse perception of pandemics and less perceived knowledge compared to men (Hp1c)
After removing the data of the participants who did not answer all the survey questions, we analyzed 998 participants, of which 739 were females and 259 were males. Their marital status was as follows: 37.68% were engaged in a relationship, 32.57% were married, 23.75% were single, 5.42% were divorced, 0.6% were widowed; 23.75% reported living in central big city areas, 20.4% were living in the suburb of a big city, 36.07% reported living in a small town, and 20.14% reported living in the countryside; 57.52% resided in Northern Italy, 17.33% resided in central Italy, 17.64% resided in South Italy, and 7.52% resided in the Islands; 20.44% were students, 2.51% were retired, 25.35% were freelance, 11.72% were temporary workers, and 30.96% were full-time employees with a permanent position; and 52.93% reported having no children, 17.13% reported having two children, 16.43% reported having one child, and 0.6% reported having more than three children
Summary
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Health Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology. Several risk models have postulated a link among online searching behavior, affect, anxiety, and complaints by individuals toward government restrictions (GR), which emerged as related to an increased perception of knowledge toward risk. According to the health belief model (HBM) (Janz and Becker, 1984; Carpenter, 2010)—well-established theoretical frameworks in health-related behavior research—often, the psychological counterpart of disease-related emergencies can entail an increased risk perception (Bults et al, 2011) modulated by sociodemographic variables (e.g., Vaughan, 2011; Clifton et al, 2016) This cognitive perception of risk can have significant implications on individuals’ emotional states on the short and on the long-term (Cafagna and Barattucci, 2019). It would be closely related to the intention to adopt protective behaviors (Leppin and Aro, 2009; Goodwin et al, 2011) as well as to personal susceptibility (Lin et al, 2020)
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