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Psychological impact of fear-based messages in context of COVID 19

Dear Editor, COVID-19 has emerged as public health crises all around the globe. This unprecedented time call for optimum use of effective health messaging from various sources. Both official communication and media intended to provide information and guidance to the public but the impact of social media and print media is deeper. Messages on social media largely utilise fear-based messages (FBM) to ensure public compliance. Therefore, it is imperative to understand how FBM influences the psyche. Researchers have suggested the cautious use of FBM as it may be ineffective owing to its low efficacy and optimism bias of people around. During the outbreak of Ebola, fear-related behaviours like limited health services utilisation, migration, stigma, and discrimination, blaming and attacking health workers played an important role in the progression of the outbreak. These fear-related behaviours contributed significantly to morbidity and mortality (Shultz et al., 2016). Exposure to Ebola was potentially traumatic considering a high mortality rate, in comparison, fear-related behaviours in context of covid-19 which cannot be explained by illness. Newspapers frequently sensationalise new clusters as ‘corona blast’. Animations depicting ‘corona virus’ as a monster are frequently seen. The frequent appearance of images of dead bodies and graveyards can fuel biased interpretation. Exposure to such fear based messages in the absence of other reliable information can lead to a biased conclusion that corona kills everyone. Psychological response is significantly influenced by type and amount of media exposure. Social media messages amplify their effect through ‘echo chamber’ or ‘illusion of truth effect’ (Van den Broucke, 2020). Moreover, continuous exposure to COVID related information and denial messages can also lead to bias in estimating threat accurately. Corona Denial messages from authorities or government agencies can also contribute to mistrust and thus result into noncompliance with behavioural measures (Bavel et al., 2020). FBM can be a significant contributor towards cases of suicide reported across the world (Thakur & Jain, 2020). Many individuals suspected for COVID or asymptomatic patients are expressing severe health anxiety or contemplating suicide due to fear of stigma and discrimination. People are also avoiding hospital visits for non-COVID morbidities timely. Fear has become an important governing factor even for health care. Other fear-related behaviours like panic migration, hoarding essentials due to ‘Zero-sum thinking’ are frequently observed (Bavel et al., 2020; Ventriglio et al., 2020). Fear can elicit the phenomenon of knowledge resistance and misinterpretations (Van den Broucke, 2020). It may also lead to minimising or denial that is, people don’t believe in the plausibility of a message and adopt desired behaviour changes. FBM can also induce guilt and shame contributing to stigma and suicidality. Threat appeals are shown to be effective only when they are coupled with self-efficacy enhancing message. Response to fear can be understood by ‘Extended Parallel Process Model’ in which perception of threat and self-efficacy is important components. High perception of threat and low perceived self-efficacy can initiate maladaptive behaviours (Carey & Sarma, 2016). Precautionary information with reassurance has a greater impact on behaviour change by enhancing the selfefficacy (Ruiter et al., 2001). Enabling people to make an informed decision can enhance the feelings of social responsibility towards a collective behavioural change (Stolow et al., 2020). Guideline for media reporting should be formulated in conjunction with recommendations for health promotion during a pandemic (Van den Broucke, 2020; Ventriglio et al., 2020). The negative impact of a disproportionate threat should be highlighted by media. Researchers should examine impact of such FBM and corona denial messages during pandemic and post pandemic.