Chao Miao, Liu Jie, Xue Dini, Zhang Bin, Hall Brian J
Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China.
Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2025 Apr 8;16:1570747. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1570747. eCollection 2025.
The COVID-19 pandemic threatened mental health. This study examined the longitudinal associations among pandemic-related media use, sympathy for people infected with COVID-19 (PIWC), and death anxiety. 132 Chinese adults completed measures three times, one week apart during the initial phase of COVID. The results showed that media use, sympathy, and death anxiety decreased significantly over the first month of the outbreak. Pandemic-related media use predicted increased future sympathy for PIWC, and sympathy predicted increased future death anxiety. The study identified the short-term effects of media use on sympathy and death anxiety, and suggests that reduced media exposure may be beneficial.
新冠疫情威胁着心理健康。本研究调查了与疫情相关的媒体使用、对新冠感染者的同情以及死亡焦虑之间的纵向关联。132名中国成年人在新冠疫情初期阶段，每隔一周完成三次测量。结果显示，在疫情爆发的第一个月里，媒体使用、同情和死亡焦虑显著下降。与疫情相关的媒体使用预示着未来对新冠感染者的同情会增加，而同情则预示着未来死亡焦虑会增加。该研究确定了媒体使用对同情和死亡焦虑的短期影响，并表明减少媒体接触可能有益。
