Sotomayor-Beltran Carlos, Matta-Solis Hernan, Perez-Siguas Rosa, Matta-Solis Eduardo, Matta-Zamudio Lourdes
Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Ciencias y Humanidades, Lima, Peru.
Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Maria Auxiliadora, Lima, Peru.
Clin Pract Epidemiol Ment Health. 2021 Apr 16;17:19-25. doi: 10.2174/1745017902117010019. eCollection 2021.
The COVID-19 crisis is fuelling a state of fear among the human population at global level. Especially, those living in informal settlements and slums worldwide have been profoundly impacted by this pandemic. Individuals living in these places are already leading underprivileged lives. Thus, the economic and mental health problems caused by the COVID-19 crisis have further exacerbated their living standards, which has resulted, for instance, in tragedies such as suicides.
In this study, we have sought to identify those individuals most at risk of displaying high levels of fear of COVID-19 in an informal settlement located in the capital city of Peru.
A questionnaire was administered to 449 inhabitants living in the Carmen Alto informal settlement. The questionnaire was made up of two parts: the first one inquired about demographic data and the second part consisted of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale.
The demographic variables of age, gender, marital status, educational level, occupation, whether a relative from the household was infected with COVID-19, and whether one of them died of this showed significant differences. It could be observed as well that the groups of females, stable workers, unemployed and those having completed a workforce education are at higher odds of displaying high levels of fear of COVID-19. As expected, the groups that had either a relative infected with COVID-19 or a relative death by this had the highest levels of fear towards the virus.
The female participants are more likely to display higher levels of fear of COVID-19 due to the terrible effect that unfavorable events have on them. In the cases of the unemployed and stable workers, their proneness to show high levels of fear towards the virus is because they have lost their incomes, due to the loss of their jobs, and because of fear of infection, respectively. Hence, we hope that this work serves Peruvian (and other) health authorities to develop strategies that help individuals living in informal settlements and are in urgent need of mitigating mental health problems.
新冠疫情危机正在全球范围内引发人们的恐惧情绪。尤其是，全球生活在非正式定居点和贫民窟的人们受到了这场大流行病的深刻影响。生活在这些地方的人们原本就过着贫困的生活。因此，新冠疫情危机引发的经济和心理健康问题进一步加剧了他们的生活水平，导致了诸如自杀等悲剧的发生。
在本研究中，我们试图确定秘鲁首都一个非正式定居点中那些最有可能表现出对新冠病毒高度恐惧的人群。
对居住在阿尔托卡门非正式定居点的449名居民进行了问卷调查。问卷由两部分组成：第一部分询问人口统计学数据，第二部分是新冠病毒恐惧量表。
年龄、性别、婚姻状况、教育程度、职业、家庭中是否有亲属感染新冠病毒以及是否有亲属死于新冠病毒等人口统计学变量存在显著差异。还可以观察到，女性群体、稳定工作者、失业者以及完成劳动力教育的人群表现出对新冠病毒高度恐惧的几率更高。正如预期的那样，家中有亲属感染新冠病毒或死于新冠病毒的群体对该病毒的恐惧程度最高。
由于不利事件对女性参与者产生的可怕影响，她们更有可能表现出对新冠病毒的高度恐惧。对于失业者和稳定工作者而言，他们分别因失去工作收入和担心感染而容易表现出对病毒的高度恐惧。因此，我们希望这项工作能帮助秘鲁（以及其他国家）的卫生当局制定策略，帮助生活在非正式定居点且急需缓解心理健康问题的人们。
