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Doubts, Concerns and Fears About COVID-19: What Does the Portuguese Community Want to Know About the Pandemic?
21 Pages Posted: 2 Jun 2020
More...Abstract
Background: The control of the COVID-19 pandemic depends strongly on effective communication, which must be grounded on the population’s perceptions and knowledge. We aimed to analyze the doubts, concerns and fears expressed by the Portuguese community about COVID-19.
Methods: We performed a content analysis of 293 questions submitted to online, radio, newspaper and TV channel forums during the first month of the pandemic in Portugal.
Findings: Most questions contained doubts (n=230), especially on how to prevent person-to-person transmission (n=40), how to proceed in case of symptoms (n=37), about the virus characteristics and the disease (n=29) and how to prevent transmission through objects, food or animals (n=28). Concerns and fears were also very commonly expressed (n=144), mostly about which persons could be considered vulnerable (n=53), how to prevent transmission during daily life or normal activities (n=37), who should be on social isolation (n=26) and preventive behaviors during quarantine and social isolation (n=21).
Interpretation: Doubts about the virus, the disease and its transmission were very common at the beginning of the pandemic. As the pandemic evolved and suppression measures were put in place, doubts moved to concerns of vulnerability, quarantine and social isolation, and to doubts about transmission, transmission prevention, and on how to proceed in case of symptoms. These results show that as the pandemic evolves people doubts and concerns change, and may contribute to informing communication strategies for the response to the current and next phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as for future pandemics.
Funding Statement: None
Declaration of Interests: None.
Keywords: Communication, perceptions, knowledge, literacy, pandemic, COVID-19
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