RISK PERCEPTION, STRESS AND COPING STRATEGIES IN TWO CATASTROPHE RISK SITUATIONS

Coping and risk perception during the COVID-19 pandemic in type 2 diabetes: Does it influence metabolic control?

Diabetes and poor glycemic control are significant predictors of severity and death in the COVID-19 disease. The perception of this risk in individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) could modify coping styles, leading to behaviors associated with better self-care and metabolic control. Theoretically, active coping is associated with better glycemic control in patients with T2D. Nonetheless, information during extreme risk like the COVID-19 pandemic is still limited. Our objective was to evaluate the association between coping styles and risk perception in the COVID-19 pandemic and the change in metabolic parameters. This is a prospective study that included individuals with T2D treated in a tertiary care center during the COVID-19 outbreak who returned to follow-up one year later. We assessed coping styles and risk perception with the Extreme Risk Coping Scale and the risk perception questionnaire. Clinical characteristics and metabolic parameters were registered in both visits. Groups were compared using Kruskal Wallis tests, and changes in metabolic parameters were assessed with Wilcoxon rank sum tests. Our sample included 177 participants at baseline, and 118 concluded the study. Passive coping was more frequent in women. Low-risk perception was associated with higher age, lower psychiatric comorbidities, and lower frequency of psychiatric treatment compared with other risk perception groups. Patients with active coping plus high-risk perception did not have a change in metabolic parameters at follow-up, whereas patients with other coping styles and lower risk perception had an increase in total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, and triglycerides. There were no differences by coping group or by risk perception in glycemic control.

Risk perception predicts post-traumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic in China: the mediation effect of engaging in health-protective behaviors

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the public to enormous health risks and induced wide-ranging impacts on people's mental health. Post-traumatic growth is a possible psychological benefits that may occur during struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic. This research explored 1) demographics differences on risk perception of COVID-19 pandemic, engagement in health-protective behavior and post-traumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic; and 2) the mediation effect of engaging in health-protective behaviors between risk perception and post-traumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Females showed a significant higher level of engagement in health-protective behaviors. People who were married reported a significantly higher level of risk perception, engagement in health-protective behavior and post-traumatic growth than those who were in other marital status (i.e. single, divorced, widowed). People who had acquaintances being infected with COVID-19 reported significant higher level of risk perception and engagement in health-protective behaviors. Engagement in health-protective behaviors mediated the relationship between risk perception and post-traumatic growth. Implications of the results for public health interventions are discussed.

Social Media Overload and Anxiety Among University Students During the COVID-19 Omicron Wave Lockdown: A Cross-Sectional Study in Shanghai, China, 2022

Objectives: The increase in the intensity of social media use during the COVID-19 lockdown has affected mental health. Therefore, it is of practical implications to explore the association between social media overload and anxiety and the underlying mechanisms. Methods: Using data from 644 university students during the COVID-19 blockade in Shanghai from March to April 2022, the chain mediation model of information strain and risk perception of omicron between social media overload and anxiety was then tested using the macro PROCESS4.0 tool. Results: The findings showed that social media overload (including information overload and social overload) was positively associated with anxiety. This relationship was mediated by information strain and risk perception of Omicron. A chain mediating role of information strain and risk perception of Omicron has also been proved in this study. Conclusion: Social media overload has a positive effect on anxiety by increasing information strain and risk perception of Omicron. This study provides some implications for future interventions on how to use social media properly for mental health during the pandemic and health management of urban governance.

Coping Strategies and Trauma-Related Distress of College Students During Covid-19

Present-day college students are particularly impacted by the disconcerting effects of Covid-19 because of their vulnerability towards mental health struggles. The current study identified coping strategies used by students in the United States and how those strategies are associated with trauma-related distress. Results showed acceptance, emotional processing, and social support were the most commonly used coping strategies. Furthermore, avoidance coping related to higher distress than more helpful approaches (e.g., humor). Demographic findings revealed that Black students used more religious coping than did White and Asian students. Additionally, older and upper-year students used substances to cope more than did other students, including those with higher grade point averages. Our discussion focuses on how the findings of the present study can be used to enhance student support, resiliency, academic performance, and retention.

Evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of risk communication for maps depicting the hazard of COVID-19

COVID-19 maps convey hazard and risk information to the public, which play an important role in the risk communication for individual protection. The aim of this study is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of communicating the specific risk of COVID-19 maps. By testing 71 subjects from Wuhan, China, this study explored how color schemes (cool, warm, and mixed colors) and data presentation forms (choropleth maps, graduated symbol maps) influence visual cognition patterns, risk perception, comprehension, and subjective satisfaction. The results indicated that the warm scheme (yellow/red) has significant strengths in visual cognition and understanding, and the choropleth map (vs. the graduated symbol map) has significant strengths in risk expression. On subjective satisfaction, the combination of the mixed scheme (blue/yellow/red) and the choropleth map scored highest mean value. These results have implications for enhancing the focused functions of COVID-19 maps that fit different terms: in the early and medium terms of disease transmission, choropleth maps with warm or cool colors should be considered as a priority design for their better risk perception. When the epidemic conditions are on the upturn, a better reading experience combination of choropleth maps with mixed colors can be considered.

What influences tourist behaviors during and after the COVID-19 pandemic? Focusing on theories of risk, coping, and resilience

The threat of the COVID-19 pandemic poses risks and stress to travelers over the long term, impeding tourism demand recovery. This study aims to explore the behavioral consequences of potential tourists' personal perceptions of travel risks in pandemic threats. This study integrates risk communication and stress coping theory to address the research objectives and identifies interventions for psychological resilience. A sample of 1,179 potential adult travelers residing in Korea was surveyed online through quota sampling by age, gender, and region of residence, utilizing structural equation modeling to validate the proposed research model. The results showed that the two types of risk perception (personal- and societal-level) had different effects on problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies. It was also found that coping strategies, through psychological resilience, can change travel intentions during and after a pandemic. In particular, in terms of short-term stress relief, individuals using emotion-focused coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic have been shown to express a willingness to respond to negative emotions more quickly. Insightful implications for the recovery of tourism demand in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and strategies for managing crises in the tourism industry are provided.

Influential Factors for Sustainable Intention to Visit a National Park during COVID-19: The Extended Theory of Planned Behavior with Perception of Risk and Coping Behavior

Despite the danger of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, visits to natural tourism destinations such as national parks are continuing, though people are using less congested trails or minimizing personal contact. Given the danger from COVID-19, the purpose of our study was to use an expanded theory of planned behavior to analyze whether tourists intend to continue to visit national parks. Another purpose for our study was to compare an extant research model based on the theory of planned behavior with the extended model we developed. Frequency analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and other statistical techniques, such as correlation analysis, parsimonious fit index, and squared multiple correlations were employed according to the appropriate objectives. Additionally, the number of 351 participants joined the survey. Our study found that perception of risk of COVID-19 negatively affected attitude and perceived behavioral control in both models. Moreover, the perceived behavioral control had a positive effect on coping behavior. Given the analytical results, our study presents not only theoretical implications for understanding the behavior of those who visit national parks, but also practical implications for operation and management of national parks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Associations of risk perception of COVID-19 with emotion and mental health during the pandemic

BACKGROUND

Although there are increasing concerns on mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, no large-scale population-based studies have examined the associations of risk perception of COVID-19 with emotion and subsequent mental health.

METHODS

This study analysed cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the PsyCorona Survey that included 54,845 participants from 112 countries, of which 23,278 participants are representative samples of 24 countries in terms of gender and age. Specification curve analysis (SCA) was used to examine associations of risk perception of COVID-19 with emotion and self-rated mental health. This robust method considers all reasonable model specifications to avoid subjective analytical decisions while accounting for multiple testing.

RESULTS

All 162 multilevel linear regressions in the SCA indicated that higher risk perception of COVID-19 was significantly associated with less positive or more negative emotions (median standardised β=-0.171, median SE=0.004, P<0.001). Specifically, regressions involving economic risk perception and negative emotions revealed stronger associations. Moreover, risk perception at baseline survey was inversely associated with subsequent mental health (standardised β=-0.214, SE=0.029, P<0.001). We further used SCA to explore whether this inverse association was mediated by emotional distress. Among the 54 multilevel linear regressions of mental health on risk perception and emotion, 42 models showed a strong mediation effect, where no significant direct effect of risk perception was found after controlling for emotion (P>0.05).

LIMITATIONS

Reliance on self-reported data.

CONCLUSIONS

Risk perception of COVID-19 was associated with emotion and ultimately mental health. Interventions on reducing excessive risk perception and managing emotional distress could promote mental health.

A Conservation of Resources schema for exploring the influential forces for air-travel stress

Effective air-travel stress management is increasingly crucial in determining tourist satisfaction and travel choices, particularly in a time of intensive fear about virus, terrorism, and plane crashes. However, research about air-travel stress, particularly what and how various influential forces shape passenger stress levels, is still in its infancy. The current research proposes the adoption of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory as a holistic schema to identify through resource dynamics the potential influential forces for air-travel stress across leisure travel stages. The findings, based on surveying passengers at the gate of multi-country international and domestic airports, demonstrates the capability of COR schema to predict and explain the influences on air-travel stress from an array of personal and situational/trip-specific factors. The theoretical advances from COR-based cross-stage stress analyses, and the guidance for customized airline/airport stress-soothing service strategies are discussed.

Encouraging Individuals to Adapt to Climate Change: Relations between Coping Strategies and Psychological Distance

Experts agree that the environmental situation in relation to climate change requires that populations mobilize. In this respect, research on psychological distance shows that the fact of perceiving an event as concrete leads individuals to adapt to this environmental issue. The first aim of this research study is to identify the different types of environmental coping as regards climate change. The second objective is to study the relations between psychological distance relative to climate change and environmental coping strategies via a quasi-experimental protocol. In order to do this, 345 participants were assigned to a group where climate change was presented as more or less distant from a spatial, temporal, social or hypothetical point of view. On the one hand, the results enable the identification of two second-order factors regarding coping strategies in relation to climate change: Strategies centered on accepting climate change and those centered on minimizing its gravity. On the other hand, covariance analyses and path analyses show that, in general, a small psychological distance in relation to climate change is likely to be associated with more strategies centered on accepting climate change and fewer strategies focused on minimizing its gravity. This study leads us to ponder the pertinence of considering the psychological distance model, notably during awareness-raising campaigns.

Risk Perception of COVID-19, Meaning-Based Resources and Psychological Well-Being amongst Healthcare Personnel: The Mediating Role of Coping

The well-being of healthcare personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic depends on the ways in which they perceive the threat posed by the virus, personal resources, and coping abilities. The current study aims to examine the mediating role of coping strategies in the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and psychological well-being, as well as the relationship between meaning-based resources and psychological well-being amongst healthcare personnel in southern Poland. Two hundred and twenty-six healthcare personnel who worked in hospitals, outpatient clinics, and medical laboratories during the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic (March–May 2020) filled in questionnaires measuring risk perception of COVID-19, meaning-based resources, coping, and psychological well-being. The results demonstrate that risk perception was negatively related to psychological well-being, whereas meaning-based resources were positively associated with well-being. Two coping strategies—problem-focused and meaning-focused coping—mediated the relationship between risk perception and psychological well-being as well as the relationship between meaning-based resources and psychological well-being. This indicates that perception processes and personal factors do not directly influence healthcare personnel’s psychological well-being, but rather they do indirectly through coping processes.

Perceived self-efficacy during an emergency situation reduces posttraumatic stress symptoms

This study investigates if perceived self-efficacy during an emergency situation has a protective role in the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms among Italian and Spanish survivors of several emergency situations. We explored the impact of self-efficacy in a multiple regression model including other predictors of posttraumatic stress symptoms, such as emergency prevention knowledge; trust in emergency services; risk perception of becoming a victim of an emergency situation; and conscious and active behaviors in comparison with no conscious and no active behavior during the emergency. We carried out a retrospective study recruiting 214 participants who reported their experience as victims of one specific emergency event. Results showed that survivors who perceived themselves as more self-efficacious during the traumatic event had less posttraumatic stress symptoms. In contrast, female gender, more self-threat perception and higher trauma severity were associated with more symptoms. Findings contribute to better understand human behavior in emergency situations and evidence the protective role of perceived self-efficacy beliefs among survivors of emergency situations.

Assessing options for the development of surface water flood warning in England and Wales

This paper explores the technical options for warning of surface water flooding in England and Wales and presents the results of an Environment Agency funded project. Following the extensive surface water flooding experienced in summer 2007 a rainfall threshold-based Extreme Rainfall Alert (ERA) was piloted by the Met Office and Environment Agency providing initial steps towards the establishment of a warning for some types of surface water flooding. The findings of this paper are based primarily on feedback on technical options from a range of professionals involved in flood forecasting and warning and flood risk management, about the current alerts and about the potential options for developing a more targeted surface water flood warning service. Providing surface water flooding warnings presents a set of technical, forecasting and warning challenges related to the rapid onset of flooding, the localised nature of the flooding, and the linking of rainfall and flood forecasts to flood likelihood and impact on the ground. Some examples of rainfall alerting and surface water flood warning services from other countries are evaluated, as well as a small number of recently implemented local services in England and Wales. Various potential options for implementation of a service are then explored and assessed. The paper concludes that development of a surface water flood warning service for England and Wales is feasible and is likely to be useful to emergency responders and operational agencies, although developing such a service for the pluvial components of this type of flooding is likely to be feasible sooner than for other components of surface water flooding such as that caused by sewers. A targeted surface water flood warning service could be developed for professional emergency responders in the first instance rather than for the public for whom such a service without further operational testing and piloting would be premature.

Loss of agro-biodiversity, uncertainty, and perceived control: a comparative risk perception study in Austria and China

The biogeographical centers of origin of important food crops-called Vavilov centers-are considered to be crucial sources of genetic diversity for present and future crop-breeding programs and thus for human food safety worldwide. Global environmental change and more intensified modes of crop production may cause genetic erosion (loss of traditional crop varieties and loss of crop wild relatives), especially in Vavilov centers. The present study focused on how the risk of genetic erosion (or loss of agro-biodiversity) is perceived in comparison to 16 other risk topics by experts and lay people in Austria and China. The most striking result was that genetic erosion was perceived to be an exceptionally unknown and uncertain risk topic, given that only genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were perceived as being even more uncertain. As a consequence of the high uncertainty, the idea of applying the precautionary principle to further prevent genetic erosion is discussed. An unprecedented finding-one that differs from Austrian participants-is that the Chinese have a higher perceived control over all risk topics. The increased perception of controllability in China is discussed in light of the theory of reflexive modernization. This theory strives to explain the increased critical attitude in Western countries such as Austria toward scientific innovations and toward the idea that everything can be calculated and mastered at will. By revealing different notions of risk perception, this research also provides additional scientific input to risk communication efforts for public education.

IMPACT OF A COMMUNITY DISASTER AWARENESS TRAINING PROGRAM IN TURKEY: DOES IT INFLUENCE HAZARD-RELATED COGNITIONS AND PREPAREDNESS BEHAVIORS

A community disaster training program focusing on earthquakes, floods and landslides was implemented in Çankiri, Turkey, in 2002. It covered mitigation, preparedness and response aspects of natural disaster management. Four thousand community members participated in the training program delivered by 95 local trainers. This study evaluated the impact of participation in this program. One year later, 400 randomly selected participants in the training program and a comparable sample of 400 community members who did not participate in any disaster training program (nonparticipants) were surveyed. Disaster-related cognitions (i.e., disaster expectation, worry about future disasters, loss estimations if a disaster occurs, beliefs in the possibility of mitigation and preparedness) and reported preparedness behaviors were assessed. The relationship of sociodemographic, previous disaster experience, anxiety and locus of control variables with disaster-related cognitions and behaviors was examined. Results showed that participants in the training program had more disaster expectation, worry and loss estimation and more preparedness behaviors. Results of regression analyses, examining the relationship of the variables of the study with disaster cognitions, affect and actual preparedness behaviors showed that gender, education, being a participant in the training program, anxiety and locus of control are important variables related to different kinds of disaster-related cognitions. However, reported preparedness behaviors were quite low and this result needs to be viewed with caution. These results have important implications for the modification of programs for targeting sustainable behavioral change, which is likely to reduce the impact of future disasters.

A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS ON SURVIVORS OF THE 1999 EARTHQUAKE IN TURKEY

In the 17 August 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake about 20,000 people died and 3,000,000 were affected either directly or indirectly. A survey of earthquake victims in Kocaeli and Adapazari (two cities in North-Western Turkey) was conducted 8 months after this major earthquake to find out its physically and psychologically destructive effects. For this purpose a questionnaire containing 25 questions was given to 800 people in Kocaeli and Adapazari where the most destruction and greatest number of deaths occurred. Results indicate that changes in expectations from life after an earthquake are highly correlated with gender, marital status, and education level

RISK PERCEPTIONS AND STRESS DURING THE THREAT OF EXPLOSION FROM A RAILROAD ACCIDENT

The derailment of a train carrying hazardous material resulted in the evacuation of an entire Midwestern community. Risk perceptions and stress were assessed in evacuees and controls (N=90) during the acute phase of the disaster while threat of explosion was looming. Consistent with the social amplification of risk theory (Kasperson et al., 1988), risk perceptions for routine transportation technologies did not become amplified in evacuees during the technological disaster; however, some elevation of risk perceptions related to less familiar chemical and nuclear technologies was evident in evacuees as compared to controls. Investigation of the relationship between risk perceptions and stress response showed that high risk perceptions for transportation technologies were associated with elevated emotional and psychological stress, and poorer concentration in evacuees compared to controls. Results suggest that monitoring risk perceptions related to the cause of a technological accident is useful in predicting variance in evacuee response during a disaster.