Data_Sheet_1_Fake news during the war in Ukraine: coping strategies and fear of war in the general population of Romania and in aid workers.PDF

IntroductionIn addition to the health crisis that erupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the war between Russia and Ukraine is impacting the mental health and wellbeing of the Romanian population in a negative way.
ObjectivesThis study sets out to investigate the impact that social media consumption and an overload of information related to the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine is having on the distribution of fake news among Romanians. In addition, it explores the way in which several psychological features, including resilience, general health, perceived stress, coping strategies, and fear of war, change as a function of exposure to traumatic events or interaction with victims of war.
MethodsParticipants (N = 633) completed the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), the CERQ scale with its nine subscales, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and the BRS scale (Brief Resilience Scale), the last of which measures resilience. Information overload, information strain and the likelihood of the person concerned spreading fake news were assessed by adapting items related to these variables.
FindingsOur results suggest that information strain partially moderates the relationship between information overload and the tendency to spread false information. Also, they indicate that information strain partially moderates the relationship between time spent online and the tendency to spread false information. Furthermore, our findings imply that there are differences of high and moderate significance between those who worked with refugees and those who did not as regards fear of war and coping strategies. We found no practical differences between the two groups as regards general health, level of resilience and perceived stress.
Conclusion and recommendationsThe importance of discovering the reasons why people share false information is discussed, as is the need to adopt strategies to combat this behavior, including infographics and games designed to teach people how to detect fake news. At the same time, aid workers need to be further supported to maintain a high level of psychological wellbeing.

引言 除了新冠疫情（COVID-19 pandemic）暴发所引发的公共卫生危机之外，俄乌冲突还对罗马尼亚民众的心理健康与福祉造成了负面影响。

研究目的 本研究旨在探究社交媒体使用以及与俄乌武装冲突相关的信息过载，对罗马尼亚民众虚假信息传播分布的影响。此外，本研究还探讨了多项心理特征随创伤性事件暴露程度或与战争受害者互动情况的变化规律，这些特征包括心理韧性（resilience）、总体健康状况、感知压力、应对策略以及战争恐惧。

研究方法 本次研究的633名（N=633）参与者完成了以下测评：一般健康问卷（General Health Questionnaire, GHQ）、包含9个分量表的CERQ量表、感知压力量表（Perceived Stress Scale, PSS）以及用于测量心理韧性的BRS量表（简易心理韧性量表，Brief Resilience Scale）。本研究通过改编与信息过载、信息负荷（information strain）以及个体传播虚假新闻可能性相关的条目，对上述变量进行评估。

研究结果 本研究结果显示，信息负荷在信息过载与虚假信息传播倾向之间起到部分调节作用；同时，信息负荷在上网时长与虚假信息传播倾向之间同样起到部分调节作用。此外，研究结果表明，在接触过难民群体与未接触过难民群体的参与者中，二者在战争恐惧与应对策略方面存在具有高度和中度统计学显著性的差异。而在总体健康状况、心理韧性水平以及感知压力这几项指标上，两组参与者未出现具有实际意义的差异。

结论与建议 本研究探讨了探明民众传播虚假信息背后动因的重要性，同时指出需采取相应策略遏制此类行为，其中包括制作用于教民众识别虚假新闻的信息图表与互动游戏。此外，还需进一步为援助人员提供支持，以维持其较高的心理健康福祉水平。