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Abstract
Previous studies have demonstrated the psychological impact of stressful events related to an infectious disease outbreak. This impact may be moderated by the perception of risk and individual differences in personality. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of the personality profiles and mental health on the perceived risk (being infected, getting hospitalized, and dying from COVID-19) and on preventive behaviors (wash your hands, stay at home, maintain social distance, touch your face, and mask use). A total sample of 126 Argentine adults, both genders, participated and filled in the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R), the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) scale, a sociodemographic questionnaire, and COVID-19 estimates regarding risk perception and preventive behaviors. Results show that people with undercontrolled personality profile and high interpersonal sensitivity overestimated their probability of getting infected, hospitalization, and dying from COVID-19. In addition, the resilient profile group with high anxiety overestimated the probability of hospitalization and dying; the undercontrolled profile group with high anxiety, phobic anxiety, or psychoticism, also overestimated their probability of dying; the undercontrolled profile people with high interpersonal sensitivity, or high anxiety reported higher probabilities of maintaining social distance. Anxiety and depression symptoms explain a low percentage of the perceived risk variance; while conscientiousness, together with mental health were able to explain the estimated probability of engaging in protective behaviors. These findings could be useful to implement more effective and realistic strategies to promote the adoption of preventive behaviors.
Keywords: COVID-19, personality, mental health, perceived risk, protective behaviors.
The pandemic has become a priority for researchers from different disciplines, among them psychology. In the event of pandemics or natural disasters, people's physical health and the fight against the pathogen are the primary focus of attention of stakeholders/managers and health professionals, so the implications for mental health tend to be overlooked or underestimated (Ornell, Schuch, Sordi, & Kessler, 2020). However, being able to understand how we perceive and behave in the face of a pandemic is essential to develop strategies for preventing infection.
On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization stated that due to the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) the world is facing an international public health emergency. Less than two months later, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) had...