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Study was conducted in the period from 10.05.2020 to 10.06.2020, when all the participants studied online due to a lockdown. Participants were recruited by local education administrators, who agreed to contribute to the study. The inviting letters were sent to school and university teachers, students and schoolchildren. The data was collected using the Digitalpsytools [20] online platform[1], developed on the basis of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Education of the Russian Academy of Education. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education (protocol code 2020/4-1, date of approval 02 April 2020) in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration 2013. Informed consent was signed by participants of the study (as well as by their legal tutors in case of minor age).
Participants
A total of 8051 citizens from two Russian regions participated in the study. 1279 (15.9%) were school teachers (M = 42.42, SD = 10.38, 91% women), 378 (4.7%) are university teachers (M = 43.17, SD = 10.80, 82% women), 1136 (14.1%) are students (M = 19.91, SD = 2.01, 76% women) and 5258 (65%) are schoolers (M = 15.30, SD = 1.23, 62% girls).
Tools and instruments
The following tests were used for this study:
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) the reduced version of 10 questions [21] of the original scale, developed by Cohen et. al. in 1983 [22]. The scale was translated and adapted in Russia in 2016 [23]. For PSS (total stress level): higher score means a higher perceived stress. Also sometimes three categories are used for it (dividing in three equal parts): low level (scores: 0-13); medium (14-26), and high (27-40) [23, 24].
The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) [26].
The questionnaire includes 14 questions and 2 subscales (each of which has 7 questions):
1. Depression. The scale reflects the level (normal, moderate, severe) of depressive symptoms.
2. Anxiety. The scale reflects the level (normal, moderate, severe of anxiety symptoms.
The degree (or level) of depression, anxiety and stress was determined according to conventional thresholds: for HADS (both depression and anxiety) score 0-7 refers to low level, 8-10 – to medium, 11 and more – to high [27].
Attitudes toward COVID-19 pandemic. Questionnaire on attitudes toward COVID-19 pandemic was elaborated by the research Team and included 20 items (listed in Table 1) that reflect various believes, feelings and opinions about COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences, such as “Thinking about coronavirus (COVID-19) makes me feel really dangerous”, “I’m afraid of being among other people, because I can catch a coronavirus (COVID-19) from them”.
Data analysis and study design
We performed descriptive statistics, principal component analysis and multinomial regression analysis with use of Excel and SPSS v.29. Principal component analysis (PCA) was implemented to reduce dimensionality of the data, related to attitudes toward COVID-19 pandemic. Before performing PCA, all variables were standardized and variables, reflecting opposite attitudes, were inverted.
The multinominal logistic regression models were used to establish an association between attitudes toward COVID-19 pandemic and anxiety, depression and perceived stress. Each of three models (for anxiety, depression and perceived stress) included factors, reflecting attitudes toward COVID-19 (established previously by PCA), participants’ social group (teachers, students and schoolchildren) and interaction between other factors and social group.