Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior Within Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility.

ABSTRACT: Due to changes in the information environment since the last global epidemic, high WHO officials have spoken about the need to fight not only the current COVID-19 pandemic but also the related infodemic. We thus explored how people search for information, how they perceive its credibility, and how all this relates to their engagement in self-protective behaviors in the crucial period right after the onset of COVID-19 epidemic. The online questionnaire was circulated within 48 h after the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Slovenia. We gathered information on participants' demographics, perception of the situation, their emotional and behavioral responses to the situation (i.e., self-protective behavior), perceived subjective knowledge, perceived credibility of different sources of inf

SUBMITTER: Lep Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7411328 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature