Global Sentiments Surrounding the COVID-19 Pandemic on Twitter: Analysis of Twitter Trends

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Abstract

Background

With the World Health Organization’s pandemic declaration and government-initiated actions against coronavirus disease (COVID-19), sentiments surrounding COVID-19 have evolved rapidly.

Objective

This study aimed to examine worldwide trends of four emotions—fear, anger, sadness, and joy—and the narratives underlying those emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Over 20 million social media twitter posts made during the early phases of the COVID-19 outbreak from January 28 to April 9, 2020, were collected using “wuhan,” “corona,” “nCov,” and “covid” as search keywords.

Results

Public emotions shifted strongly from fear to anger over the course of the pandemic, while sadness and joy also surfaced. Findings from word clouds suggest that fears around shortages of COVID-19 tests and medical supplies became increasingly widespread discussion points. Anger shifted from xenophobia at the beginning of the pandemic to discourse around the stay-at-home notices. Sadness was highlighted by the topics of losing friends and family members, while topics related to joy included words of gratitude and good health.

Conclusions

Overall, global COVID-19 sentiments have shown rapid evolutions within just the span of a few weeks. Findings suggest that emotion-driven collective issues around shared public distress experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic are developing and include large-scale social isolation and the loss of human lives. The steady rise of societal concerns indicated by negative emotions needs to be monitored and controlled by complementing regular crisis communication with strategic public health communication that aims to balance public psychological wellbeing.

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Immediate Psychological Responses and Associated Factors during the Initial Stage of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Epidemic among the General Population in China

Cuiyan Wang, Riyu Pan, Xiaoyang Wan … (2020)

Background: The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic is a public health emergency of international concern and poses a challenge to psychological resilience. Research data are needed to develop evidence-driven strategies to reduce adverse psychological impacts and psychiatric symptoms during the epidemic. The aim of this study was to survey the general public in China to better understand their levels of psychological impact, anxiety, depression, and stress during the initial stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. The data will be used for future reference. Methods: From 31 January to 2 February 2020, we conducted an online survey using snowball sampling techniques. The online survey collected information on demographic data, physical symptoms in the past 14 days, contact history with COVID-19, knowledge and concerns about COVID-19, precautionary measures against COVID-19, and additional information required with respect to COVID-19. Psychological impact was assessed by the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and mental health status was assessed by the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Results: This study included 1210 respondents from 194 cities in China. In total, 53.8% of respondents rated the psychological impact of the outbreak as moderate or severe; 16.5% reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms; 28.8% reported moderate to severe anxiety symptoms; and 8.1% reported moderate to severe stress levels. Most respondents spent 20–24 h per day at home (84.7%); were worried about their family members contracting COVID-19 (75.2%); and were satisfied with the amount of health information available (75.1%). Female gender, student status, specific physical symptoms (e.g., myalgia, dizziness, coryza), and poor self-rated health status were significantly associated with a greater psychological impact of the outbreak and higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression (p < 0.05). Specific up-to-date and accurate health information (e.g., treatment, local outbreak situation) and particular precautionary measures (e.g., hand hygiene, wearing a mask) were associated with a lower psychological impact of the outbreak and lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression (p < 0.05). Conclusions: During the initial phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, more than half of the respondents rated the psychological impact as moderate-to-severe, and about one-third reported moderate-to-severe anxiety. Our findings identify factors associated with a lower level of psychological impact and better mental health status that can be used to formulate psychological interventions to improve the mental health of vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 epidemic.

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Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science

Emily A. Holmes, Rory C O'Connor, V. Perry … (2020)

Summary The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is having a profound effect on all aspects of society, including mental health and physical health. We explore the psychological, social, and neuroscientific effects of COVID-19 and set out the immediate priorities and longer-term strategies for mental health science research. These priorities were informed by surveys of the public and an expert panel convened by the UK Academy of Medical Sciences and the mental health research charity, MQ: Transforming Mental Health, in the first weeks of the pandemic in the UK in March, 2020. We urge UK research funding agencies to work with researchers, people with lived experience, and others to establish a high level coordination group to ensure that these research priorities are addressed, and to allow new ones to be identified over time. The need to maintain high-quality research standards is imperative. International collaboration and a global perspective will be beneficial. An immediate priority is collecting high-quality data on the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic across the whole population and vulnerable groups, and on brain function, cognition, and mental health of patients with COVID-19. There is an urgent need for research to address how mental health consequences for vulnerable groups can be mitigated under pandemic conditions, and on the impact of repeated media consumption and health messaging around COVID-19. Discovery, evaluation, and refinement of mechanistically driven interventions to address the psychological, social, and neuroscientific aspects of the pandemic are required. Rising to this challenge will require integration across disciplines and sectors, and should be done together with people with lived experience. New funding will be required to meet these priorities, and it can be efficiently leveraged by the UK's world-leading infrastructure. This Position Paper provides a strategy that may be both adapted for, and integrated with, research efforts in other countries.

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Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response

Jay Bavel, Katherine Baicker, Paulo S Boggio … (2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behaviour with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping. In each section, we note the nature and quality of prior research, including uncertainty and unsettled issues. We identify several insights for effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight important gaps researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Anita Sheldenkar:

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5402-9269

Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and InformationNanyang Technological University31 Nanyang LinkSingapore, 637718Singapore65 69083444anitas@ntu.edu.sg

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): JMIR Public Health Surveill

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): JMIR Public Health Surveill

Journal ID (publisher-id): JPH

Title: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance

Publisher: JMIR Publications (Toronto, Canada )

ISSN (Electronic): 2369-2960

Publication date Collection: Apr-Jun 2020

Publication date (Electronic): 22 May 2020

Publication date PMC-release: 22 May 2020

Volume: 6

Issue: 2

Electronic Location Identifier: e19447

Affiliations

[1 ] Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University Singapore Singapore

[2 ] School of New Media and Communication Tianjin University Tianjin China

[3 ] Institute of Communication and Health University of Lugano Lugano Switzerland

[4 ] School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne Melbourne Australia

[5 ] Institute of High Performance Computing Agency for Science, Technology and Research Singapore Singapore

Author notes

Corresponding Author: Anita Sheldenkar anitas@ 123456ntu.edu.sg

Author information

May Oo Lwin https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1832-8242

Jiahui Lu https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2984-7435

Anita Sheldenkar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5402-9269

Peter Johannes Schulz https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4281-489X

Wonsun Shin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1636-8171

Raj Gupta https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9580-8429

Yinping Yang https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9885-1791

Article

Publisher ID: v6i2e19447

DOI: 10.2196/19447

PMC ID: 7247466

PubMed ID: 32412418

SO-VID: c4cadd24-e1b3-4851-8425-4b66f40bcd29

Copyright © ©May Oo Lwin, Jiahui Lu, Anita Sheldenkar, Peter Johannes Schulz, Wonsun Shin, Raj Gupta, Yinping Yang. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 22.05.2020.

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://publichealth.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

History

Date received : 17 April 2020

Date revision requested : 6 May 2020

Date revision received : 11 May 2020

Date accepted : 13 May 2020

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