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Examining the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown in Wuhan and Lombardy: A Psycholinguistic Analysis on Weibo and Twitter.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 06 24; 17(12)IJ

Abstract

Many countries are taking strict quarantine policies to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease 2019) around the world, such as city lockdown. Cities in China and Italy were locked down in the early stage of the pandemic. The present study aims to examine and compare the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on individuals' psychological states in China and Italy. We achieved the aim by (1) sampling Weibo users (geo-location = Wuhan, China) and Twitter users (geo-location = Lombardy, Italy); (2) fetching all the users' published posts two weeks before and after the lockdown in each region (e.g., the lockdown date of Wuhan was 23 January 2020); (3) extracting the psycholinguistic features of these posts using the Simplified Chinese and Italian version of Language Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) dictionary; and (4) conducting Wilcoxon tests to examine the changes in the psycholinguistic characteristics of the posts before and after the lockdown in Wuhan and Lombardy, respectively. Results showed that individuals focused more on "home", and expressed a higher level of cognitive process after a lockdown in both Wuhan and Lombardy. Meanwhile, the level of stress decreased, and the attention to leisure increased in Lombardy after the lockdown. The attention to group, religion, and emotions became more prevalent in Wuhan after the lockdown. Findings provide decision-makers timely evidence on public reactions and the impacts on psychological states in the COVID-19 context, and have implications for evidence-based mental health interventions in two countries.

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Authors+Show Affiliations

Su Y
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100101, China. Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Xue J
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work& Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A1, Canada.
Liu X
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100101, China.
Wu P
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100101, China. Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. School of Computing, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China.
Chen J
School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
Chen C
Middleware System Research Group, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A1, Canada.
Liu T
Institute of Population, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Gong W
School of Sociology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
Zhu T
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100101, China. Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.

MeSH

BetacoronavirusCOVID-19ChinaCoronavirus InfectionsEmotionsHumansItalyMental HealthPandemicsPneumonia, ViralPsycholinguisticsQuarantineSARS-CoV-2Social Media

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Language

eng

PubMed ID

32599811

Citation

Su, Yue, et al. "Examining the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown in Wuhan and Lombardy: a Psycholinguistic Analysis On Weibo and Twitter." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 17, no. 12, 2020.
Su Y, Xue J, Liu X, et al. Examining the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown in Wuhan and Lombardy: A Psycholinguistic Analysis on Weibo and Twitter. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(12).
Su, Y., Xue, J., Liu, X., Wu, P., Chen, J., Chen, C., Liu, T., Gong, W., & Zhu, T. (2020). Examining the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown in Wuhan and Lombardy: A Psycholinguistic Analysis on Weibo and Twitter. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17124552
Su Y, et al. Examining the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown in Wuhan and Lombardy: a Psycholinguistic Analysis On Weibo and Twitter. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 06 24;17(12) PubMed PMID: 32599811.
* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case
TY - JOUR T1 - Examining the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown in Wuhan and Lombardy: A Psycholinguistic Analysis on Weibo and Twitter. AU - Su,Yue, AU - Xue,Jia, AU - Liu,Xiaoqian, AU - Wu,Peijing, AU - Chen,Junxiang, AU - Chen,Chen, AU - Liu,Tianli, AU - Gong,Weigang, AU - Zhu,Tingshao, Y1 - 2020/06/24/ PY - 2020/05/15/received PY - 2020/06/10/revised PY - 2020/06/22/accepted PY - 2020/7/1/entrez PY - 2020/7/1/pubmed PY - 2020/7/9/medline KW - impact of COVID-19 lockdown KW - psycholinguistic analysis KW - psychological states KW - public health emergencies JF - International journal of environmental research and public health JO - Int J Environ Res Public Health VL - 17 IS - 12 N2 - Many countries are taking strict quarantine policies to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease 2019) around the world, such as city lockdown. Cities in China and Italy were locked down in the early stage of the pandemic. The present study aims to examine and compare the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on individuals' psychological states in China and Italy. We achieved the aim by (1) sampling Weibo users (geo-location = Wuhan, China) and Twitter users (geo-location = Lombardy, Italy); (2) fetching all the users' published posts two weeks before and after the lockdown in each region (e.g., the lockdown date of Wuhan was 23 January 2020); (3) extracting the psycholinguistic features of these posts using the Simplified Chinese and Italian version of Language Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) dictionary; and (4) conducting Wilcoxon tests to examine the changes in the psycholinguistic characteristics of the posts before and after the lockdown in Wuhan and Lombardy, respectively. Results showed that individuals focused more on "home", and expressed a higher level of cognitive process after a lockdown in both Wuhan and Lombardy. Meanwhile, the level of stress decreased, and the attention to leisure increased in Lombardy after the lockdown. The attention to group, religion, and emotions became more prevalent in Wuhan after the lockdown. Findings provide decision-makers timely evidence on public reactions and the impacts on psychological states in the COVID-19 context, and have implications for evidence-based mental health interventions in two countries. SN - 1660-4601 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/32599811/Examining_the_Impact_of_COVID_19_Lockdown_in_Wuhan_and_Lombardy:_A_Psycholinguistic_Analysis_on_Weibo_and_Twitter_ DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -