BIENESTAR EN LA PANDEMIA: SU RELACIÓN CON LAS ACTITUDES Y CREENCIAS HACIA LAS MEDIDAS DE PREVENCIÓN

Abstract

At the end of 2019 humanity was surprised by the emergence and expansion of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Its rapid spread and the impact on people's health led the World Health Organization to declare it a global pandemic in early 2020.

In this context, national governments ordered different preventive measures in order to control the disease.

Among them, mandatory preventive social isolation (ASPO) stands out.

These implementations altered the daily life of the population.

In this framework it was proposed to investigate the evolution of well-being during the pandemic in four times, associating it with
attitudes and beliefs towards preventive measures based on gender and ideological position.

The objective was to describe, through a non-experimental, longitudinal trend and group difference study, the behavior of an urban sample, from the general population of Buenos Aires, during four times between April 2020 and June 2021, through a self-administered
virtual questionnaire.

The convenience sample was composed by 1,142 participants (63.40% women; 36.60% men) with a mean age of = 39.77 years (SD=14.63).

As expected, and in line with previous studies, all well-being scores were lower in times of social isolation and begin to increase from T3 and T4 when mandatory social distancing began, and the vaccination process started in the country.

Hedonic well-being obtained the highest values, while social well-being was the most affected. When grouping participants by gender, no
differences showed up.

On the other hand, positive attitudes towards preventive measures were observed during T1, but dispositions declined when passing time and the advent of vaccines.

Women were more favorable to paying taxes for the benefit of the health system, while men showed greater affinity for immigration and social plans.

Regarding the ideological position, those who positioned themselves on the left showed a greater inclination for social and migratory policies.

Finally, it was observed that fear to the unknown increase totalitarian beliefs.