BACKGROUND
The foray of Covid-19 around the globe is sure to have instigated worries in many humans, and lockdown measures may well have created their own worries. Sweden, in contrast to most other countries, had first relied on voluntary measures, but had to change its policy in the face of an increasing number of infections.
OBJECTIVE
The aim was to better understand the worried reactions to the virus and the lockdown measures. To grasp the reactions, their development over time was studied.
METHODS
Results were based on an unbalanced panel sample of 261 Swedish participants filling in 3218 interview questionnaires by smartphone in a 7-week period in 2020. Causal factors considered in this study include the perceived severity of an infection, the susceptibility of a person to the threat posed by the virus, the perceived efficacy of safeguarding measures and the assessment of government action against the spread of Covid-19. The effect of these factors on worries was traced in two analytical steps: the effects at the beginning of the study, and the effect on the trend during the study.
RESULTS
Findings confirmed that the hypothesized causal factors (severity of infection, susceptibility to the threat of the virus, efficacy of safeguarding and the assessment of government preventive action did indeed affect worries.
CONCLUSIONS
The results confirmed earlier research in a very special case and demonstrated the usefulness of a different study design, which takes a longitudinal perspective, and a new type of data analysis borrowed from multi-level study design.
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