Anxiety are among the most common (Huang, Zhao, 2020, Rajkumar, 2020, Roy et al., 2020) and stable (Wang et al., 2020) mental complaints in a pandemic situation. Based on cognitive approach (Beck, Emery, Greenberg, 2005) one should differentiate unrealistic (dysfunctional) anxiety as well as different types of anxiety (Roy et al., 2020).

The aim was to reveal relationship of different types of anxiety with the search for information about coronavirus and protective behavior.

In April 2020 (2-3 weeks of self-isolation regimen) 409 respondents not infected by coronavirus (186 men, 223 women) aged 18 to 64 years appraised their anxiety of infection and pandemic consequences (Cronbach’s alphas .77-.82), the degree to which anxiety disturbs their usual activities, the frequency of tracking information about the coronavirus (.75) and various protective actions against the coronavirus (.76).

17.1% reported that anxiety disturbed their activities. Anxiety of pandemic negative consequences was more prominent than anxiety of infection and was unrelated to age and gender. Anxiety of infection was higher in females (t=-5.48, p<.01, η=.26) and elder people (r=.20, p<.01). Both anxiety of infection and of pandemic consequences was equally related to information tracking and protective behavior (r=.25-.36, p<.01). Dysfunctional anxiety was unrelated to adherence to self-isolation (r=.08) but was related to information tracking (r=.21, p<.01).

Dysfunctional anxiety is unrelated to self-isolation and should be differentiated from realistic anxiety in studies of pandemic. Research is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project No. 20-04-60072.

Pandemic is accompanied by “infodemic” that is related to higher anxiety (Moghanibashi-Mansourieh, 2020; Roy et al., 2020; Huang, Zhao, 2020). We suggest that indefinite and stressful situation of pandemic provoke magical thinking leading to lower adherence with recommendations for self-isolation.

The aim was to reveal the structure of beliefs about reasons, manifestation and consequences of coronavirus and their relationship with magical thinking, anxiety and COVID-19-related behaviour.

In April 2020 (2-3 weeks of self-isolation regimen) 402 adults aged 18-64 years old filled checklist including beliefs about pandemic (based on the model of Leventhal et al., 2003), Magical Ideation Scale Eckblad, Chapman, 1983) as well as scales measuring anxiety and protective behaviour in pandemic and monitoring of information about coronavirus (Tkhostov, Rasskazova, 2020).

Factor analysis revealed three groups of radical beliefs about coronavirus (48.6% of variance, Cronbach’s alphas .62-.75). Belief about the particular meaning of coronavirus was associated with the magical thinking (r=.21), less anxiety about infection (r=-.19) and poorer adherence to self-isolation (r=-.26). Belief in the negligence as a cause of coronavirus was more typical for those with better adherence (r=.18) while catastrophic beliefs about the consequences of pandemic were related to frequent monitoring of the information about the pandemic (r=.24), and anxiety regarding future negative consequences of the pandemic (r=.46).

Dysfunctional beliefs about coronavirus could be a factor of poorer adherence related to magical thinking and could be addressed in psychological interventions. Research is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project No. 20-04-60072.

COVID-19 outbreak has been accompanied by a massive infodemic, however, many vulnerable individuals such as illiterate or low-literate, older adults and rural populations have limited access to health information. In this context, these individuals are more likely to have poor knowledge, attitudes, and preventive practices related to COVID-19. The current study was aimed to investigate COVID-19’s awareness of the illiterate population of Pakistan.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among illiterate Pakistanis of ages ≥ 18 years through a convenient sampling approach. The study participants were interviewed face to face by respecting the defined precautionary measures and all data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 22 (IBM, Armonk, NY).

The mean age of the study participants’ (N = 394) was 37.2 ± 9.60 years, with the majority being males (80.7%). All participants were aware of the COVID-19 outbreak and television news channels (75.1%) were the primary source of information. The mean knowledge score was 5.33 ± 1.88, and about 27% of participants had a good knowledge score (score ≥ 7) followed by moderate (score 4 - 6) and poor (score ≤ 3) knowledge in 41.6%, and 31.5% of respondents, respectively. The attitude score was 4.42 ± 1.22 with good (score ≥ 6), average (score 4 - 5), and poor attitude (score ≤ 3) in 19%, 66%, and 15% of the participants, respectively. The average practice-related score was 12.80 ± 3.34, with the majority of participants having inadequate practices.

COVID-19 knowledge, attitude, and preventive practices of the illiterate population in Pakistan are unsatisfactory. This study highlights the gaps in specific aspects of knowledge and practice that should be addressed through awareness campaigns targeting this specific population.