Managing Fear In Times Of Pandemic
Authorities need to manage three major issues in pandemic:
1) Medical Issues : Actual containment, treatment and prevention of pandemic.
2) Communication : Explain the pandemic to the general public without causing fear and chaos.
3) Restore Order : Once pandemic has passed, restore public confidence and business confidence.
There have been 67 declared diseases outbreak in the last 20 years. In 2009, Swine Flu - H1N1 disease outbreak was declared as a pandemic that killed approximately 600,000 people.Other 66 disease outbreaks filled close to 100,000 people.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/phases-pandemic-hiten-bhuta
We have not yet developed effective strategy and system to communicate about disease outbreak. It is important to communicate facts and provide responsible updates that will ease people's anxieties.
Dr. Nidal Moukaddam, MD, PhD wrote in Psychiatric Times on November 15, 2019 :
“In most of the previous pandemic, fear and anxiety overtook the factual narrative of the problem. Media coverage of the pandemic enhanced people’s anxieties. There were gross overreactions that caused tremendous and unnecessary hardships. Epidemics and pandemics propagate fear and erratic behavior and, long after they are over, remain entrenched within the global psyche, often in the form of folk tale and literary or historical accounts. Naturally, logically, and unsurprisingly, the larger the scale of an outbreak, the larger the impact and magnitude of its sequel.”
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/anxiety/fears-outbreaks-and-pandemics-lessons-learned
As per experts, public’s fears and anxieties reach unrealistic levels during the pandemic crisis. Tufts school of medicine has stated that over consumption of pandemic news can impact mental health. They have written:
“We may feel like we or our loved ones are in imminent danger, but those feelings aren’t always perfectly calibrated to reality. Humans are prone to biased thinking—things that come quickly to mind, like the many headlines and social media posts focusing on the virus, may lead us to believe that risks are greater than they actually are.”
https://now.tufts.edu/articles/coping-anxiety-time-pandemic
American Psychological Association in its March-2015 warned Government and Media outlets against over hyping the pandemic situation. APA article states that
"What happened was quite consistent with what we know about risk perception," says Paul Slovic, PhD, professor at the University of Oregon and president of Decision Research, a nonprofit whose scientists study human judgment and decision making. "The minute the Ebola threat was communicated, it hit all of the hot buttons: It can be fatal, it's invisible and hard to protect against, exposure is involuntary and it's not clear that the authorities are in control of the situation."
For four decades, Slovic and other psychologists have studied how people perceive risk and what causes them to overreact to epidemics, terrorist attacks and other extreme events, even when their personal risk is infinitesimal, yet at the same time be less attentive to other threats that are far more likely to harm them, such as the flu.
Those misplaced reactions can lead to the stigmatization of people and shunning daily activities, ushering in a new set of problems on top of a current crisis.”
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/03/fear
Several scholarly article and research on pandemic communication has stressed the importance of effective & reliable communication to ease people’s anxieties.
“Rumors can impede disease control and can be amplified by mistrust of government officials, which is a significant challenge in LMICs with high levels of corruption or legacies of violent conflict and social division. Research has found that in unstable contexts, people tend to believe rumors that confirm their preexisting beliefs and anxieties (Greenhill and Oppenheim 2017). This finding suggests that countering rumors with facts alone will not be sufficient. Risk communications need to be both factual and empathetic, addressing unfolding events and underlying fears through the lens of community experiences, histories, and perceptions.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525302/
As per the guidelines of Centers For Disease Control - CDC, you can take following steps to take care of yourself during pandemic
- Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including social media. Hearing about the pandemic repeatedly can be upsetting.
- Take care of your body. Take deep breaths, stretch, or meditate. Try to eat healthy, well-balanced meals, exercise regularly, get plenty of sleep, and avoid alcohol and drugs.
- Make time to unwind. Try to do some other activities you enjoy.
- Connect with others. Talk with people you trust about your concerns and how you are feeling.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/managing-stress-anxiety.html
As per USA Today’s article and comments of leading researcher David Clark, any looming threat provokes strong feeling of fear.
“David Clark, a clinical psychologist and author of "The Runaway Mind," said public fear may be heightened because of "looming vulnerability."
"When a danger or threat is gradually approaching it tends to be more frightening to us, than, let's say, if danger were to appear all of a sudden," Clark said of theory. "We started out with media reports from China which seemed to be very distant to us, not a particular threat, but then over the weeks we see this encroaching, getting closer and closer to home."
Now it's in the U.S., but not necessarily in everyone's state or community. As it expands, people remain anxious about if and when it will touch their lives.
If you are in a leadership role, you can take steps to ease the imaginary fear and anxieties. It is important and useful to take precautions. However, it is completely counterproductive to propagate imaginary fears that fuels people’s anxieties.
Please share your ideas on what action everyone can take to communicate facts about Coronavirus and how we can help ease the fears.
Comments
Post a Comment