Perceived Severity of the Coronavirus Disease 2019: An International Comparative Analysis

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which started in China in December 2019, has rapidly spread all over the world. Italy was the first European country to experience the outbreak in mid-February 2020. The virus has been spreading at different speed and timing in other European states, including Romania, which declared a state of emergency on 16th March. As there are no vaccines available, governments had to face the emergency by implementing lockdown in order to reduce the number of infections. The aim of this paper is to analyse the severity perceived by citizens regardingCOVID-19 infection, through a comparative analysis between Romanians and Italians. Drawing on the theories of Health Behaviour, the perceived severity was measured through 8 items, subsequently reduced through an exploratory factorial analysis that allowed to identify two factors defined as“Emotional reaction” and “Perceived consequences”. For each of the two factors, the correlation was measured both with the demographic variables(gender, age, level of education) and with other variables considered relevant (possibility of home working, perceived level of information on preventive measures, and self-reported adoption of preventive behaviour). The citizens who answered the online questionnaire were 1126 in Romania and 742 in Italy. Although the two countries were in different stages of the infection, and with different political actions implemented by the two governments, results showed numerous similarities in severity perception. Practical implications emerged for designing intervention programs by local and national governments.