Development and validation of the pandemic fatigue scale
- Author(s)
- Lau Lilleholt, Ingo Zettler, Cornelia Betsch, Robert Böhm
- Abstract
The existence and nature of pandemic fatigue–defined as a gradually emerging subjective state of weariness and exhaustion from, and a general demotivation towards, following recommended health-protective behaviors, including keeping oneself informed during a pandemic–has been debated. Herein, we introduce the Pandemic Fatigue Scale and show how pandemic fatigue evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic, using data from one panel survey and two repeated cross-sectional surveys in Denmark and Germany (overall N = 34,582). We map the correlates of pandemic fatigue and show that pandemic fatigue is negatively related to people’s self-reported adherence to recommended health-protective behaviors. Manipulating the (de)motivational aspect of pandemic fatigue in a preregistered online experiment (N = 1584), we further show that pandemic fatigue negatively affects people’s intention to adhere to recommended health-protective behaviors. Combined, these findings provide evidence not only for the existence of pandemic fatigue, but also its psychological and behavioral associations.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Occupational, Economic and Social Psychology
- External organisation(s)
- University of Copenhagen, Aarhus University, Universität Erfurt, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Volume
- 14
- ISSN
- 2041-1723
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42063-2
- Publication date
- 10-2023
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 501021 Social psychology
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Physics and Astronomy(all), Chemistry(all), Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/development-and-validation-of-the-pandemic-fatigue-scale(b4518f1f-4dfe-4497-9271-6cb7b0b60a8a).html