Dataset Information

Perceptions of the Post First-Lockdown Era in the Current Covid-19 Pandemic: Quantitative and Qualitative Survey of the French Population.

ABSTRACT: Introduction: A pandemic with the severity of COVID-19 affects people's lives physically, as well as their daily routines, views of the world, and emotional balance. Lockdown is often an unpleasant experience due to a separation from loved ones, loss of freedom, and uncertainty over the disease status. To adjust, individuals and groups have had to adapt their perceptions of the event to the current scenario. This study aims to describe the perceptions of confined people on the changes occurring in their lives in the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdown. Methods: A total of 1,534 individuals (26.6% men; 73.4% women; mean age 41.6) responded to the questionnaire comprising 19 closed and five open-ended questions about the changes they anticipated in their lives in the immediate post-confinement era. Results: Two definite groups appeared in the results: those who lived the confinement pleasantly, and those for which it was painful. They differ according to their confinement conditions and perceived degree of exposure to the virus. There seems to be a link for those who had a pleasant experience to a lower perceived exposure to the virus and less burdensome confinement conditions (young children, surface area, etc.). Lockdown conditions seem to influence the respondents' perceptions: a pleasant experience is associated with a vision of the society's evolution at large, and the care about its economic and professional progress; a painful one is associated more with focusing on the immediate needs of social support and personal well-being. Discussion: Emotional experience during lockdown impacts the perception of its aftermath, with hope and anxiety becoming two ways of coping with uncertainty.

SUBMITTER: Fouques D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8273336 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundThe outbreak of COVID-19 has been a major interrupting event, challenging how societies and individuals deal with risk. An essential determinant of the virus' spread is a series of individual decisions, such as wearing face masks in public space. Those decisions depend on trade-offs between costs (or benefits) and risks, and beliefs are key to explain these.MethodsWe elicit beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic during lockdown in France by means of surveys asking French citizens about their belief of the infection fatality ratio (IFR) for COVID-19, own risk to catch the disease, risk as perceived by others, and expected prevalence rate. Those self-assessments were measured twice during lockdown: about 2 weeks after lockdown started and about 2 weeks before lockdown ended. We also measured the quality of these beliefs with respect to available evidence at the time of the surveys, allowing us to assess the calibration of beliefs based on risk-related socio-demographics. Finally, comparing own risk to expected prevalence rates in the two successive surveys provides a dynamic view of comparative optimism with respect to the disease.ResultsThe risk perceptions are rather high in absolute terms and they increased between the two surveys. We found no evidence for an impact of personal experience with COVID-19 on beliefs and lower risk perceptions of the IFR when someone in the respondent's family has been diagnosed with a disease. Answers to survey 1 confirmed this pattern with a clear indication that respondents were optimistic about their chances to catch COVID-19. However, in survey 2, respondents revealed comparative pessimism.ConclusionThe results show that respondents overestimated the probabilities to catch or die from COVID-19, which is not unusual and does not necessarily reflect a strong deviation from rational behavior. While a rational model explains why the own risk to catch COVID-19 rose between the two surveys, it does not explain why the subjective assessment of the IFR remained stable. The comparative pessimism in survey 2 was likely due to a concomitant increase in the respondents' perceived chances to catch the disease and a decreased expected prevalence rate.

Dataset Information

Perceptions of the Post First-Lockdown Era in the Current Covid-19 Pandemic: Quantitative and Qualitative Survey of the French Population.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets