Factors associated with fear of pandemic information received by Peruvian police and military personnel

Abstract

Introduction: For police and military, access to suitable and truthful information has always been important, during the pandemic the need was even greater due to the tasks assigned to them as part of the front line against the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective: To determine the factors associated with fear of pandemic information received by Peruvian police and military personnel. Methods: Cross-sectional study with analytical procedures, 1 017 Peruvian police and military were surveyed, through surveys conducted during the pandemic, a validated test was used to measure the perception of fear or concern transmitted by the media, the frequencies and analytical results were reported. Results: The respondents perceived a lot of fear of social networks (22% strongly agree and 36% agree) and television (20% strongly agree and 32% agree). In the multivariate model, the military perceived less fear compared to the police (aPR: 0.65; CI95%: 0.49-0.88; value p= 0.004), in addition, the Internet was the medium that generated a greater frequency of perception of fear among the respondents (aPR: 1.65; CI95%: 1.04-2.61; value p= 0.032), adjusted for 3 variables. Conclusion: Television and social networks are the main media that generate fear among police and military; in addition, being scared was more associated with being informed through the Internet.

Keywords

• covid-19
• miedo
• medios de comunicación
• personal militar
• policía
• perú.