Psychological Aspects of Media Communication during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Insights from Healthcare and Pharmacy Specialists in Lithuania

In the setting of disasters, people seek information as they hope that knowledge will provide security. This makes the media a critical source of crisis exposure. The aim of the study described in this article was to analyze COVID-19 pandemic-related psychological aspects of media use by healthcare and pharmacy workers in Lithuania and to reveal the subjective effects of media consumption on their psychological well-being. 967 healthcare workers and pharmacists in Lithuania completed an electronic survey, which consisted of questions about the changes in well-being experienced since the beginning of the lockdown and media use in the search for information on COVID-19. It was found that communication might have ambiguous effects on psychological well-being. Excessive, unreliable, misleading, contradictory information and "catastrophizing" were subjectively related to impaired psychological well-being. Objective and reliable, relevant, clear, timely, hopeful and supportive information had a subjective positive effect. Seeking COVID-19-related information many times a day was associated with increased fear of becoming infected with COVID-19, feeling unable to control the risk of contracting COVID-19, fear of infecting relatives with COVID-19 and feeling that other people would avoid interaction with healthcare workers and pharmacists because of their job. General browsing was not consistently associated with COVID-19-related fears.