COVID-19 information exposure and its implications for employees in the health care sector: findings from an online survey (Preprint)
BACKGROUND During the COVID-19 pandemic, the massive delivery of rapidly changing information about the science of the disease and its implications on everyday life can place high demands on individuals' abilities to deal with all this information. Professionals working in the healthcare sector are in the spotlight of this scenario. OBJECTIVE In this survey study, our aim was to quickly assess estimates about the sources, type and volume of information these individuals receive, and their feelings related to information processing demands during the pandemic. METHODS An online cross-sectional questionnaire survey was distributed to employees of a major healthcare provider in São Paulo, Brazil, between April 3-10 2020. Quantitative data were assessed with descriptive statistical analysis. Data from open-ended questions were assessed with word cloud graphs. RESULTS A total of 2646 respondents were included in the analysis. Most participants (44.3%) reported having had access to excessive, or close to excessive information about the new coronavirus and 67.6% reported an increase in the average time spent on social media per day (mean increase of 2.46 hours, standard deviation of 4.35 hours). When asked how frequently they consider it is easy to determine the reliability of information, sometimes’ corresponded to 43.2% of the answers in contrast to 14.6% responding ‘always’. Participant's responses on possible signs of information overload associated with the pandemic indicated that: 31% always or almost everyday felt stressed about the amount of information they had to follow. Among the total of respondents, 80.0% reported experiencing at least one symptom such as headache, eye twitching, restlessness or sleeping difficulty. Participants showing a more negative information–processing style regarding dealing with a lot of information also reported a higher proportion of symptoms than participants that have a positive information-processing style. Similarly, participants that increased their social media access reported higher proportion of symptoms than participants that decreased their social media access during the pandemic. 45.5% respondents reported deliberately reducing their exposure to information about COVID-19. The most common reported reasons for this behavior change were information repetition (77.6%) and fatigue (59.4%). CONCLUSIONS Our survey provides a description of the ways in which individuals consume COVID-19 related information during the pandemic, and suggests that excessive information exposure and high processing demands may impose psychological distress.