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The Impact of the Certainty of Information on COVID-19 Attitudes in Spanish University Teachers and Students

The COVID-19 pandemic affects the whole world. Spain is one of the most affected nations. Prevention via information that fosters knowledge, reasonable concern, control and personal care is the most effective means to slow down the pandemic. In this intervention study we assessed extant knowledge, concern, control and care about the COVID-19 in 111 Spanish university teachers and students. Subsequently, we randomly assigned them to two groups. One group (n = 53) received uncertain information about the current measures of prevention whereas the other group (n = 58) received certain information. A group by time interaction revealed that the ‘certain information’ group reported immediately increased personal care about the pandemic. These findings suggest that measures known to be effective in COVID-19 prevention should be communicated with certainty (i.e. must be convincing) to influence people’s attitudes through the schematic organization of new information.