Research on the Emotions of Uninfected People during the COVID-19 Epidemic in China

  1. Gang Chen
  2. Juan-Juan Yue

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Abstract

Background

The negative emotions induced by the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic are affecting people’s health. In order to identify emotional problems and promote early intervention to reduce the risk of disease, we studied the emotional states of Chinese people during the epidemic.

Method

We adopted the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics mood scale and prepared an online questionnaire. Then, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the effective responses of 567 participants from 31 provinces and cities in China. Finally, we analyzed the characteristics of the distribution of different types of emotions and compared them via several statistical methods.

Results

The original scale was modified to have six dimensions that yielded reliable internal consistency values ranging from 0.898 to 0.965 and explained 74.96% of the total variance. We found that a total of 33.9% of respondents felt negative emotions more strongly, were less happy and had less energy than other respondents (p<0.001). People with these traits had relatively serious emotional problems and were typically over 60 years old, doctoral degree holders, enterprise personnel and residents in an outbreak area.

Conclusion

Thirty-three percent of people without COVID-19 had emotional problems. Psychotherapy should be provided as early as possible for people with emotional problems caused by the epidemic, and the modified scale could be used to survey the public’s mood during public health events to detect problems and facilitate early intervention.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.03.22.22272730: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Ethics statement: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Ethics Committee of the author’s University.
    Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all subjects.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The data were analysed using SPSS 13.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL).
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Our study also has some limitations that should be considered. The survey was carried out in the late stage of the epidemic when the epidemic had been effectively contained and people’s negative emotions may have been substantially relieved. This timing may have affected the results of the survey. The conclusions would be enhanced by the inclusion of more participants and a longer study duration.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.03.22.22272730 on medRxiv