Understanding the Moderating Effect of Covid's Accurate Information, Protective Behaviors to Avoid Contracting COVID, and Certain Demographic Factors on the Relationship between Trusted News Source and Stress, Depression and Anxiety, and Optimism

Background and purpose

CDC has reported more than 575,000 COVID deaths in April 2021, and the number of fatalities has been growing. People were confused due to receiving mixed messages about COVID-related problems and protective measures. Effective communication is instrumental in developing credibility and public trust, which are established and enhanced through compassion, empathy, honesty, and dedication (Reynold, 2006; Reynolds & Quinn, 2008). Generally, scientific knowledge tends to be clear and specific, but it may lose its meaning with scant information available in the public domain, sociopolitical infighting replacing scientific reasoning, and unfiltered curation of interpretative contents on social media.

The COVID 19 outbreak measures undertaken during the current public health crisis to safeguard people's lives are among the most intrusive interventions (such as mass isolation, mask mandate, and social distancing) in recent history. These interventions have evoked mixed emotions, behaviors, and attitudes towards government interventions, social and political values, and human rights. With the growing fear of future outbreaks and recent experience, it is reasonable and pertinent to raise questions about what helped and what future efforts will help overcome present fissures and failures and moderate people's social, psychological, and political sentiments for positive outcomes.

Methods:

This study is a retrospective study and has utilized a large 2020 dataset, Social Media as a Recruitment Platform for a Nationwide Online Survey of COVID-19 Knowledge, Beliefs, and Practices in the United States. The data was collected nationally through social media (N=6.602). The objectives of the current study have been to understand the moderating effect of accurate knowledge about COVID 19, people's protective behaviors to avoid contracting COVID 19, certain demographic variables such as age, race, education, employment status, political affiliations, and urban, suburban, and urban region on the relationship between the people's trusted news sources (government, doctors, priests, social media, and/or google search) and stress, anxiety, depression, and optimism. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to understand the moderating effects of knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, and demographic variables.

Findings:

Data analysis revealed that the overall model was a significant predictor of stress, anxiety, and levels of optimism. Conforming to the study's conceptual framework and existing knowledge, the study results indicate that trusted sources of information did not contribute significantly to stress, anxiety, or optimism to overcome pandemics like COVID 19. Surprisingly, political affiliation, employment status, believing COVID is not a serious problem, accurate COVID prevention knowledge, and trusted news sources were not significant predictors in the final model with anxiety, depression, and stress, as dependent variables. Interestingly, protective behavior was a significant predictor of anxiety, depression, and stress, but not for optimism about COVID 19 outbreak.

Implications and Conclusion:

The study's results lift many misconceptions prevailing in the present society about the news sources, political affiliations, people's knowledge, behavior and help provide effective assessment and intervention guidelines. Understanding the emerging dynamics of people's protective behavior, positive and negative beliefs system, demographics, and prevailing misconceptions about people's news utilizations and behaviors have significant implications for social work practice and policymakers.