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Background: Fear has been a common response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic throughout the world. In Mauritius, the outbreak of COVID-19 has been an exceptional occurrence requiring stringent confinement of the population. In this study, we have explored people’s reactions to COVID-19 during confinement, with emphasis on fear and the impact of news on the level of fear.

Methods: An anonymized online survey was carried out during confinement. Participation was voluntary. Participants reported fear level on a scale from 1-10, where no fear scored 1 and maximum fear scored 10. Participants reported the impact of news on their fear level on a scale of 1-10, where 1 represented no impact and 10 represented maximum impact. Participants reported the status of information received about COVID-19 on a scale of 1-10 where 1 represented no information on COVID-19 and 10 represented maximum information on COVID-19.

Results: The self-rated level of fear during confinement had a mean of 5.09 with 95%CI [4.70, 5.47]. This increased to a mean of 6.39 with 95%CI [6.00-6.78] at the prospect of confinement being lifted. The difference was statistically significant (paired-sample T-test, p<0.001). With regard to the impact of news on fear of COVID-19, the mean for local news was 5.97 with 95%CI [5.59, 6.34] whereas that of worldwide news was 6.86 with 95%CI [6.50, 7.23]. Worldwide news had a more significant impact (paired-sample T-test, p<0.001). The information score about COVID-19 had a mean of 5.12 with 95%CI [4.71, 5.53].

Conclusions: Participants experienced a moderate level of fear of COVID-19 during confinement which increased at the prospect of confinement being lifted, implying that people felt safer during confinement. Their fear was influenced more by international news than by local news. Overall participants reported that they were moderately well informed about the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research aimed to examine entrepreneurial fear of failure and entrepreneurial well-being from the perspectives of incubated and nonincubated startups during crises.

Data were collected by distributing online questionnaires to 152 respondents comprising 43 incubated and 109 nonincubated startups in Indonesia. A multivariate discriminant analysis procedure was used to examine the interrelationships between both groups at the discovery, validation, customer creation and construction stages.

The result showed a significant difference between these startups at various stages, which was analyzed to provide insights into the relevant dimensions of fear of failure for startups. The essence of entrepreneurial well-being during crises is in accordance with the role of business incubators in an emerging market economy.

Startups need to innovate in order to grow while considering other factors such as work-life balance and financial resource availability. This is important to ensure they have sufficient motivating dosage of fear of failure.

The present study evaluates incubated and nonincubated startups in an emerging market economy by using both the entrepreneurial fear of failure and well-being to capture possible differences between groups. The context of pandemic crises helps us formulate appropriate approaches taken by incubators and startups in the future crises.

Fear of birth may cause perinatal complication, increased risk of intervention and need for analgesia, delayed mother–infant attachment process and deterioration of spouse relationship. The purpose of this study was to determine the affecting factors and childbirth fears of Turkish pregnant women.

This is a descriptive research type. The sample of this study consisted of 78 pregnant women who met the inclusion criteria and agreed to participate in this study. This study was carried out in a family health center and university hospital in a city in Turkey. Data were collected with Personal Information Form and Wijma Expectancy/Experience Scale-A Version (W-DEQ A).

The mean scores of pregnant women from W-DEQ A version were 75.60 ± 9.48. In 65.4% of pregnant women, fear of severe birth, 20.5% fear of clinical birth and 14.1% of children had a fear of moderate birth. W-DEQ A version, the third trimester, unplanned pregnancies, lack of knowledge of the level of inadequate birth and more than eight pregnancies in pregnancy, the total score of pregnant women was found to be higher (p < 0.05).

The limitation of this study is its small sample size. Further studies with larger sample sizes are needed.

It was determined that one-fifth of the sample group experienced birth fear at the clinical level and childbirth fear level is associated with unplanned pregnancies, lack of knowledge. In antenatal period, the pregnant woman should be encouraged to express her feelings and thoughts about the labor and give information about the labor.

Cognitive and behavioral education programs can be structured to cope with fear of birth for pregnant women at risk.

This research is original. This study presents data on Turkish women. The data can also be used to evaluate intercultural differences.

The benefits associated with visibility in organizations depend on employees' willingness to engage with technologies that utilize visible communication and make communication visible to others. Without the participation of workers, enterprise social media have limited value. This study develops a framework to assess what deters and drives employees' use of enterprise social media.

Data were collected from 753 employees of a global company using an online survey. The response rate was 24.5%. The authors used structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized framework.

The results show that various fears by workers may deter or motivate enterprise social media use. This offers an alternative viewpoint for examining the consequences of communication visibility in organizations. Specifically, the findings demonstrate that the fear of accountability and the fear of losing uniqueness reduce enterprise social media use through increased codification efforts. The fear of missing out is directly and positively related to collecting behaviors on enterprise social media.

Expectations about participation in visible organizational communication environments are rising. However, as individuals may experience anxiety in such settings, the authors need to direct more analytical focus to the ways individuals manage communication visibility in organizing contexts and develop a deeper understanding of the consequences of fear in workplace communication.

The analysis recognizes that fear can play a key role in deterring or motivating workers' specific choices in navigating the challenges that occur when technology can make communication broadly visible. This study uses theorizing on communication visibility to bring together different fear mechanisms to predict enterprise social media use.

The primary objective of the paper is to present the role and meaning of fear in organizations implementing TQM. The author's intention is to identify the causes of fear in the TQM components as well as the main types of fear, their causes, consequences and methods of reduction.

The main research method applied is a systematic review of the literature on the subject. The applied systematic review procedure takes into consideration the indicated research objective, the selection of the basic literature and publications, the presentation of the publication database and content analysis. The author also makes use of his own observations ensuing from his acting in the capacity of a TQM consultant and a juror of the Polish Quality Award.

The paper presents the causes of fear in the TQM components, the main types of fear and its consequences. The limited possibilities of eliminating fear are also indicated. Fear appears when, for various reasons, TQM is improperly implemented and maintained, but also when resources are allocated incorrectly (e.g. a wrong selection of quality team members), and it is included in social processes (e.g. in the quality team forming process). It appears when only structural empowerment rather than mental empowerment is applied, when there exist contradictory expectations with regard to empowerment, in case of excessive and/or “have to” commitment in particular employees, and when too much emphasis is placed on commitment.

The reflections included in the paper may become useful for quality management practitioners, as such knowledge allows them to avoid mistakes which are the cause of fear, that is an emotion making quality improvement difficult. The paper does not present the manifestations and sources of fear in all TQM components, and they are certainly included in a broadly understood quality culture. Nevertheless, the gathered and arranged knowledge can be the source of further research.

Being the result of the studies of the literature on the subject, this paper is one of few publications discussing in a detailed manner one of the principles of effective quality management formulated by E. Deming, namely “driving fear out”.

During the pandemic, two types of fear were identified that occur significantly in all groups or profiles of people. The aim of this paper is to determine which of the two types of fears exist in certain psychological groups, and which of the fears strongly influence the decision to travel.

The VALS 2 method and standardized questionnaire were used for the segmentation of the tourist market or for the determination of the psychographic profiles of the consumers, and three additional questions were joined to it as they were vital for the research of the type of fear and its impact on the decision for traveling. When the reliability of the questionnaire and the validity of the sample were determined, the data were further processed using a computer program package IMB AMOS SPSS 21.00, and then, based on the theoretical suppositions and hypotheses, the SEM structural model was created.

The paper indicates the existence of established types of fears in humans, when it comes to pandemics and similar crisis situations. People are most afraid of infection during travel, and lack of funds and job loss during the critical period of the pandemic. The research conducted confirms that all groups of people, who are determined by the psychological technique VALS 2, react with a certain dose of fear and make decisions under the pressure of fears.

The research had limitations in terms of contact with people and conducting live surveys. The measures during the pandemic, which were carried out by the state, included social distance and limited movement of people.

The work can contribute to the community, along with similar research. The results of the research will be available, and it will be possible to see the behavior of people during crisis situations, and the impact of fears on making decisions, both travel decisions and decisions related to other areas of life.

The paper provides research results on a large sample of respondents, and can serve as a basis for further research in the field of tourism, psychology and similar fields. It is crucial to consider the type of fears, and the strength of the impact of these fears on the decision to travel, during crisis situations.

Applying three psychological theories, this study aims to attempt to investigate the role of consumer psychology, specifically the factors of trust in vaccination, threat severity, fear, anxiety, risk and hygiene, and safety, on intention to resume hotel consumption. The authors also tested the mediation effect of anxiety among psychological constructs: perceived threat, fear and risk with the intention to resume hotel consumption.

Using purposive sampling, data were collected from 470 respondents from four cities in Malaysia and analysed by applying analysis of moment structures (AMOS) structural equation model technique. The respondents for this study were frequent travellers meaning the leisure tourists who at least travel twice a year or travel when getting the occasion to explore new things. In this study, an online survey was employed to ensure easy accessibility and to enhance the number of replies.

The results of this study confirmed that perceived severity, risk and fear influence travellers' anxiety. This study further confirms that trust in vaccination and hygiene & safety provided by the hotelier reduces anxiety levels. Anxiety is found one of the most important predictors of intention to resume hotel consumption, which further mediates the relationship between other psychological variables: perceived severity, risk, fear and intention to resume hotel consumption. Anxiety mediates the relationship between perceived severity, fear and intention to resume hotel consumption and partially mediates the association between risk and intention to resume hotel consumption.

This study examined three psychological theories and extended them by including the trust in vaccination and the hygiene and safety constructs. Anxiety was investigated as a mediator.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze message features of fear appeals in current British road safety campaigns directed against mobile phone use while driving and to discuss barriers to explicit theory use in campaign message design.

This message-centred research takes a qualitative content analytical approach to analyze nine British web-based road safety campaigns directed against mobile phone use while driving based on the extended parallel process model. Message content and message structure are analyzed.

There still exists a gap between theory and road safety campaign practice. The study reveals that campaigns with fear appeals primarily use threatening messages but neglect efficacy-based contents. Severity messages emerge as the dominant content type while self-efficacy and response efficacy are hardly represented. Fear appeal content in the threat component was mainly communicated through the mention of legal, financial and physical harm, whereas efficacy messages communicated success stories and encouragement. As regards message structure, the threat component always preceded the efficacy component. Within each component, different patterns emerged.

To enhance efficacy in campaigns directed against distracted driving and to reduce the gap between theory and practice, social marketers should include messages that empower recipients to abstain from mobile phone use while driving. Campaigns should show recommended behaviours and highlight their usefulness and effectiveness.

This paper adds to limited research conducted on effect-independent message properties of fear appeals. It enhances understanding of fear appeal message features across the structure and content dimension. By discussing barriers to explicit theory use in social marketing practice and offering practical implications for social marketers, it contributes towards reducing the barriers to explicit theory use in campaign message design.

Excessive use of work-related information technology (IT) devices can lead to major performance and well-being concerns for organizations. Extant research has provided evidence of the incidence of such problematic IT use in organizations. We extend the understanding of problematic IT use by examining its individual (proximal) and organizational (distal) antecedents.

Drawing from the self-worth theory and the concept of fear of being left behind, we address proximal antecedents that lead to problematic IT use. Drawing from the concept of autonomy paradox, we address distal antecedents of problematic IT use through a positive association with the two proximal antecedents. We report the results of a field study involving 846 individuals who use IT for work. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data.

The results indicate that the proximal antecedents (IT insecurity and fear of missing out) are positively associated with problematic IT use. The distal antecedents (IT use autonomy and involvement facilitation) are positively associated with the proximal antecedents except for the relationship between IT use autonomy and IT insecurity, which was found statistically non-significant. Furthermore, fear of missing out fully mediates the effect of IT use autonomy on problematic IT use, whereas IT insecurity and fear of missing out fully mediate the effects of involvement facilitation on problematic IT use.

The paper theoretically extends the understanding of problematic IT use and identifies novel its proximal and distal antecedents.

This study aims to explore the effect of mental health in terms of depression, anxiety, stress, fear of COVID-19 and quality of life (QoL) on the reluctance to be vaccinated in a population of Palestinian adults living in occupied Palestinian territories and Israel.

The authors recruited 1,122 Palestinian adults who consented to participate in the study; 722 were females, and the mean age of the sample was 40.83 (SD 8.8). Depression, anxiety, and stress scale (DASS), World Health Organization QoL-BREF, FCov-19 and reluctance to the vaccine scale were administered; hierarchical regression analysis was applied to test vaccine reluctance as a dependent variable, and mental health, fear of COVID-19 and QoL as independent variables. This study hypothesized influence of such variables on the vaccine choice with differences due to the participants’ geographical locations.

Findings showed an effect of mental health, particularly depression, QoL and fear of COVID on vaccine reluctance, with depression and fear of COVID in the West Bank and Gaza, while in Israel, QoL played a role in vaccination choices.

The future needs to be comprehended more thoroughly to discover mutations and fluctuations over time in vaccine hesitancy and the increasing role of psychological distress, diminished QoL and fear of Covid-19. Online recruitment might not have allowed the study to include the most disadvantaged strips of the Palestinian population.

Human rights perspectives must be considered in public health and public mental health policies to ensure the QoL and well-being for the Palestinian population during and following the pandemic.

The crumbling of the Palestinian health-care system exacerbated the sense of dread among the population and made them less likely to vaccinate. The pandemic-like spread of Covid-19 prompts a plea for the global community to actively advocate for the urgent re-establishment of equity, autonomy and durability of the medical infrastructure in the occupied territories and equal entitlements for the Palestinians in Israel.

The results demonstrated the importance for public mental health to consider the multiple levels implied in the vaccine refusal in Palestine and Israel among the Palestinian population.