Alisha Arora, Amrit Kumar Jha, & Sitanshu Sekhar Das
Source - Asian Journal of Psychiatry
1. Introduction
2. Conceptualizing coronaphobia
Based on a review of these studies, we define coronaphobia as an excessive triggered response of fear of contracting the virus causing COVID-19, leading to accompanied excessive concern over physiological symptoms, significant stress about personal and occupational loss, increased reassurance and safety-seeking behaviors, and avoidance of public places and situations, causing marked impairment in daily life functioning. The triggers involve situations or people involving the probability of virus contraction, such as meeting people, leaving the house, traveling, reading the updates or news, falling ill, or going to work outside.
The definition implies three essential components (Figure 1 ), which reinforces the process of fear:
I. Physiological: The fight or flight response of fear is triggered, on being exposed to an antecedent event. Constant worry can cause symptoms such as palpitations, tremors, difficulty in breathing, dizziness, change in appetite, and sleep (Wang et al., 2020).
II. Cognitive: Fear of virus would involve a preoccupation with the threat provoking cognitions (Chakraborty and Chatterjee, 2020), e.g. ‘I will die if I contract the virus, ‘I will not be able to go to my job and will be unemployed’; ‘My family is in danger and they may die’. The cognitions may further trigger emotional responses, like sadness, guilt, and anger.
III. Behavioral: In order to prevent the consequences, individuals engage in avoidance behaviors. There is marked fear of using public transportation, touching any surface, being at open places (markets, beaches, stadiums) and at enclosed places (hotels, shopping malls, movie theatres, indoor stadiums), attending any public gatherings, and standing in the queue (Tanner, 2020). The individual fears and/or avoids situations like meeting people or overindulges in health-related safety behaviors (like washing hands). Reassurance behaviors such as constantly checking body vitals, confirming the absence of illness, self-medicating, or rechecking sanitation perpetuate fear (Li et al., 2020), leading to phobia. Besides, the zoonotic origin of the virus (Andersen et al., 2020), may further lead to the fear of having exotic meat-based food. Though the fear is realistic, it can disturb the overall quality of the everyday functioning of the individual.