COVID-19 information exposure in digital media and implications for employees in the health care sector: findings from an online survey

• Autor(a) principal: Bazán,Paulo Rodrigo
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Azevedo Neto,Raymundo Machado de, Dias,Julia Abou, Salvatierra,Vanessa Gil, Sanches,Liana Guerra, Lacerda,Shirley Silva, Amaro Junior,Edson, Kozasa,Elisa Harumi, Balardin,Joana Bisol
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Einstein (São Paulo)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1679-45082020000100288
• topic: COVID-19; Coronavirus infections; Social media; Information seeking behavior; Psychological distress; Cross-sectional studies; Survey and questionnaires

ABSTRACT Objective: To estimate coronavirus disease 2019-related information consumption and related implications for health care professionals (medical and nonmedical personnel) during the pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional on-line survey was distributed to employees of a major health care institution located in São Paulo, Brazil between April 3 and April 10, 2020. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: The sample comprised 2,646 respondents. Most participants (44.4%) reported excessive or almost excessive access to information about the novel coronavirus and 67.6% reported having increased their average time spent on social media. When asked how frequently they consider it was easy to determine the reliability of information, “sometimes” corresponded to 43.2% of the answers in contrast to 14.6% responding “always”. Answers related to potential signs of information overload associated with the pandemic indicated that 31% of respondents felt stressed by the amount of information they had to keep up with almost every day or always. Overall, 80.0% of respondents reported having experienced at least one of the following symptoms: headache, eye twitching, restlessness or sleeping difficulty. The frequency of symptoms was higher among participants with a more negative information processing style regarding when dealing with large volumes of information relative to those with a positive information processing style. Likewise, symptoms were more frequently reported by participants who had increased their social media access relative to those reporting reduced access during the pandemic. Conclusion: Our survey provides a description of how health professionals consume COVID-19 related information during the pandemic, and suggests that excessive information exposure and high processing demands may impose psychological distress and affect mental health.