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. 2021;14(3):566-574.
doi: 10.1007/s41811-020-00078-3. Epub 2020 May 29.

COVID-19-Related Economic Anxiety Is As High as Health Anxiety: Findings from the USA, the UK, and Israel

Liad Bareket-Bojmel  1 , Golan Shahar  2 , Malka Margalit  1   3
Affiliations

COVID-19-Related Economic Anxiety Is As High as Health Anxiety: Findings from the USA, the UK, and Israel

Liad Bareket-Bojmel et al. Int J Cogn Ther. 2021.

Abstract

As the COVID-19 outbreak peaks, millions of individuals are losing their income, and economic anxiety is felt worldwide. In three different countries (the USA, the UK, and Israel: N = 1200), the present study addresses four different sources of anxiety: health-related anxiety, economic-related anxiety, daily routine-change anxiety, and anxiety generated by social isolation. We hypothesized that, economic anxiety would have a similar or greater effect, compared to health anxiety. Results show that in all three countries, the levels of economic and health anxiety were essentially equal, and both surpassed routine-change and isolation anxiety. Although the COVID-19 crisis originated in the health field, this study emphasizes the need to move from a generalized concept of anxiety to specific types of distress, most notably economic anxiety. Economic anxiety results in serious mental and physical health problems and should be attended to by clinical professionals and by policy makers.

Keywords: COVID-19; Economic-anxiety; Financial-anxiety; Health-anxiety; State-anxiety.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of InterestOn behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Economic anxiety is shown to be as high as health anxiety
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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