Accepted in JMIR Formative Research September 18th, 2021 Published in JMIR Formative Research December 3rd, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2196/28239

Authors: Ole Myklebust Amundsen, Asle Hoffart, Sverre Urnes Johnson, Omid V. Ebrahimi

Abstract

Background: The 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic has added to the mental health strain on individuals and groups across the world. Viral mitigation protocols and viral spread affect millions every day, but to widely different degrees. How individuals gather information about the pandemic might have an effect on levels of mental distress in the population.

Objective: This study seeks to investigate if there is a differential effect among different information sources on health anxiety, depression and anxiety, to what extent, and how different information sources are related to symptoms of health anxiety, depression, and anxiety.

Methods: In the second stage of a cross-sectional survey, data was collected from 4936 participants between June 22nd and July 13th, 2020. The eligible participants were adults currently residing in Norway and were thus subjected to identical viral mitigation protocols. This same was post-stratified using an iterative raking algorithm and is a representative Norwegian sample. Multiple regression was used to investigate associations between symptoms of psychopathology and COVID-19-related information dissemination. Part correlation was calculated as a measure of effect size for each predictor variable. Due to the large, anticipated sample size the pre-registered criteria for significance were set at P < .01.

Results: A total of 4921 participants make up the sample used for all weighted statistics. Symptoms of anxiety was significantly associated with information obtainment using newspapers (P < .001) and social media (P < .001). Symptoms of depression was significantly associated with information obtainment using newspapers (P < .01) and social media (P < .01). Symptoms of health anxiety was significantly associated with information obtainment using newspapers (P < .001) and social media (P < 001). Additionally, avoidance of COVID-19-related information emerged as a significant association in all three domains of psychopathological symptoms (anxiety and depression P < .001, health anxiety P < .01).

Conclusions: The present study found significant associations between symptoms of psychopathology and media for informational attainment related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Significant findings for informational attainment through newspapers, social media and online interactive media was seen across all three measures of psychopathology. Avoidance of COVID-19-related information and associations with symptoms of psychopathology emerged as a core find, with generally higher effect sizes compared to informational attainment. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov [NCT04442360]