Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34769858›Full record

ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2021

Fear of Infection and the Common Good: COVID-19 and the First Italian Lockdown.

Lloyd Balbuena, Merylin Monaro

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Risk management during times of health uncertainty in Spain: A qualitative analysis of ethical challenges.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2025
    Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Lloyd BalbuenaDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 0W8, Canada.ORCID 0000-0002-3745-5426
Merylin MonaroDepartment of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35151 Padua, Italy.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In the first quarter of 2020, Italy became one of the earliest hotspots of COVID-19 infection, and the government imposed a lockdown. During the lockdown, an online survey of 2053 adults was conducted that asked about health behaviors and about the psychological and overall impact of COVID-19. The present study is a secondary analysis of that data. We hypothesized that self-control, higher socio-economic status, existing health conditions, and fear of infection were all inversely related to actions (or intentions) that violated the lockdown (i.e., infractions). Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), we found that only the fear of infection significantly dissuaded people from violating lockdown rules. Since it is not practical or ethical to sow a fear of infection, our study indicates that enacting rules and enforcing them firmly and fairly are important tools for containing the infection. This may become more important as vaccines become more widely available and people lose their fear of infection.

Indexed as

Communicable Disease ControlCOVID-19FearHumansItalySARS-CoV-2Social Justicecollective behaviorfear of infectionpathogenssafety measuresself-controlsocial dilemma

Identifiers

PMID34769858
PMCPMC8583192

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.