Mental health characteristics associated with dysfunctional coronavirus anxiety

In a recent study of 775 adults residing in the U.S., individuals who were functionally impaired by their fear and anxiety of the coronavirus exhibited greater hopelessness, suicidal ideation, spiritual crisis, and alcohol/drug coping, than those who were anxious, but not impaired by the disease (Lee, in press). Because a large number of people tend to experience clinically significant fear and anxiety during an infectious disease outbreak (Taylor, 2019), it is vital for health professionals to understand the psychological challenges of those with this particular condition (Asmundson & Taylor, 2020). [...]we examined online survey data from 1237 MTurk workers taken on 2 April 2020, in order to identify mental health characteristics of adults with dysfunctional coronavirus anxiety. A logistic regression, which controlled for sociodemographic effects of age, gender, education, and race, demonstrated that dysfunctional coronavirus anxiety was associated with coronavirus infection (odds ratio (OR) 3.04, 95% CI 1.28–7.25), generalized anxiety (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.06–1.20), depression (OR 1.09, 95% CI 1.03–1.15), functional impairment (OR 1.08, 95% CI 1.05–1.11), perceived lack of social support (OR 1.16, 95% CI 1.04–1.28), and suicidal ideation (OR 1.24, 95% CI 1.13–1.37).