Write your message


XML Persian Abstract Print


Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanity, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran. , Soltani.Psy@gmail.com
Abstract:   (216 Views)
Background: The coronavirus epidemic, caused one of the biggest crises in the field of public health. Despite the central role of dysfunctional health beliefs, how multiple levels of anxiety and its multiple foci influence and play a role in reducing health is largely unclear. It was therefore necessary to conduct studies on the levels of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aims: This study aimed to compare health anxiety, multifaceted focus on health control, and COVID-19 anxiety in female students based on irrational health beliefs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: The present study was descriptive and causal-comparative. The statistical population included all female students studying in universities of Guilan province in the first semester of the academic year 2021-2022. Based on convenience sampling, 319 students participated through an online invitation. To collect data, the Corona Anxiety Questionnaire (Alipour et al., 2020), Irrational Health Beliefs Questionnaire (Christensen & Warwick, 1999), Multifaceted Health Control Questionnaire (Wallston et al., 1978), and the revised version of the Health Anxiety Questionnaire (Salicoskis et al., 2002) were used. The collected data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance using SPSS.26 software.
Results: The results of multivariate analysis of covariance showed that internal health control, luck control, negative disease outcome, and overall health anxiety were significantly higher in the group with irrational health beliefs (P< 0.05) and the mean of corona anxiety was higher in people with low irrational beliefs (P< 0.05).
Conclusion: In general, the results of the research showed that people with high scores on the scale of irrational health beliefs report higher scores in internal and chance locus of control, and health anxiety and report lower scores in Corona anxiety. Therefore, evidence-based psychological interventions in the multidimensional direction of anxiety are suggested for these people.
 
Full-Text [PDF 1154 kb]   (75 Downloads)    
Type of Study: Research | Subject: Special
Received: 2025/06/1 | Accepted: 2025/08/6 | Published: 2026/03/21

References
1. علی پور احمد؛ قدمی ا؛ علیپور ز؛ عبداله زاده ح. (1398). اعتباریابی مقدماتی مقیاس اضطراب بیماری کرونا در نمونه ایرانی. روانشناسی سلامت، 8(32)، 163-175.
2. Arora, T., Grey, I., Östlundh, L., Lam, K. B. H., Omar, O. M., & Arnone, D. (2022). The prevalence of psychological consequences of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. Journal of Health Psychology, 27(4), 805–824.
3. Balkis, M., & Eridink, D. (2023). Negative Life Events Associated with COVID-19 and Psychological Distress: The Role of Irrational and Rational Beliefs | Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy.
4. Bojmel, L. barekat, Shahar, G., & Margalit, M. (2023). COVID-19-Related Economic Anxiety Is As High as Health Anxiety: Findings from the USA, the UK, and Israel | International Journal of Cognitive Therapy.
5. Bridges, K. R., & Harnish, Richard. J. (2010). (PDF) Role of irrational beliefs in depression and anxiety: A review.
6. Delpino, F. M., da Silva, C. N., Jerônimo, J. S., Mulling, E. S., da Cunha, L. L., Weymar, M. K., Alt, R., Caputo, E. L., & Feter, N. (2022). Prevalence of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis of over 2 million people. Journal of Affective Disorders, 318, 272–282.
7. Dopelt, K., Bashkin, O., & Davidovitch, N. (2022). Health locus of control in cancer patient and oncologist decision-making: An exploratory qualitative study | PLOS ONE.
8. Eriksson, M. C. M., Lundgren, J., Hellgren, M., Li, Y., Björkelund, C., Lindblad, U., & Daka, B. (2023). Association between low internal health locus of control, psychological distress and insulin resistance. An exploratory study. PLOS ONE, 18(5), e0285974.
9. Fjermestad, K. W., Orm, S., Silverman, W. K., & Cogo-Moreira, H. (2022). Short report: COVID-19-related anxiety is associated with mental health problems among adults with rare disorders. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 123, 104181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104181
10. Heinen, A., Varghese, S., & Moldynski, A. (2021). Understanding health anxiety in the COVID-19 pandemic.
11. Jalil Fathabadi, Mona Izaddost, Davood Taghavi, Bita Shalani, & Saeid Sadeghi. (2018). The Role of Irrational Health Beliefs, Health Locus of Control and Health-Oriented Lifestyle in Predicting the Risk of Diabetes. Payesh (Health Monitor), 17(2), 169–178.
12. Kesavayuth, D., Tran, D. B., & Zikos, V. (2022). Locus of control and subjective well-being: Panel evidence from Australia. PLOS ONE, 17(8), e0272714.
13. Kim, S. T., Seo, J. H., Lee, S., Jeon, S., Park, C. I., Kim, S. J., & Kang, J. I. (2022). Dysfunctional coronavirus anxiety in nonpsychotic psychiatric outpatients during the COVID-19 pandemic: A network analysis. Depression and Anxiety, 39(7), 556–563.
14. Krohler, A. michel, & Turner, Martin. J. (2022). Link Between Irrational Beliefs and Important Markers of Mental Health in a German Sample of Athletes: Differences Between Gender, Sport-Type, and Performance Level.
15. Lindström, M., Pirouzifard, M., Rosvall, M., & Fridh, M. (2022). Health locus of control and all-cause, cardiovascular, cancer and other cause mortality: A population-based prospective cohort study in southern Sweden. Preventive Medicine, 161, 107114
16. Malesza, M., & Kaczmarek, M. C. (2021). Predictors of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. Personality and Individual Differences, 170, 110419.
17. Mirzabeigi, P. A. H., & Afshar, S. P. (2021). [PDF] Assessing Health Anxiety among Healthcare Providers of COVID-19 Patients from March to May 2020, Rafsanjan County, Iran | Semantic Scholar.
18. Ozdin, S., & Ozdin, B. (2020). Levels and predictors of anxiety, depression and health anxiety during COVID-19 pandemic in Turkish society: The importance of gender -.
19. Pitel, L., & Ballová Mikušková, E. (2021). The Irrational Health Beliefs Scale and Health Behaviors in a Non-Clinical Population. European Journal of Health Psychology, 28(3), 111–119.
20. Racine, N., McArthur, B. A., & Cooke, J. (2021). Global Prevalence of Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Children and Adolescents During COVID-19: A Meta-analysis | Adolescent Medicine | JAMA Pediatrics | JAMA Network.
21. Ring, L., Kimron, L., & Palgi, Y. (2020). The moderating role of subjective nearness-to-death in the association between health worries and death anxieties from COVID-19: Death Studies: Vol 46, No 7.
22. Santomauro, D. F., Herrera, A. M. M., Shadid, J., Zheng, P., Ashbaugh, C., Pigott, D. M., Abbafati, C., Adolph, C., Amlag, J. O., Aravkin, A. Y., Bang-Jensen, B. L., Bertolacci, G. J., Bloom, S. S., Castellano, R., Castro, E., Chakrabarti, S., Chattopadhyay, J., Cogen, R. M., Collins, J. K., … Ferrari, A. J. (2021). Global prevalence and burden of depressive and anxiety disorders in 204 countries and territories in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet, 398(10312), 1700–1712.
23. Stanković, S., Lazarević, L. B., & Knežević, G. (2022). The Role of Personality, Conspiracy Mentality, REBT Irrational Beliefs, and Adult Attachment in COVID-19 Related Health Behaviors. Studia Psychologica, 64(1), Article 1.
24. Struck, S., Stewart-Tufescu, A., Asmundson, A. J. N., Asmundson, G. G. J., & Afifi, T. O. (2021). Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) research: A bibliometric analysis of publication trends over the first 20 years. Child Abuse & Neglect, 112, 104895.
25. Sun, F., Zhu, J., Tao, H., Ma, Y., & Jin, W. (2021). A systematic review involving 11,187 participants evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on anxiety and depression in pregnant women. Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, 42(2), 91–99.
26. Turner, M. J., Miller, A., Youngs, H., Barber, N., Brick, N. E., & Chadha, N. J. (2022). “I must do this!”: A latent profile analysis approach to understanding the role of irrational beliefs and motivation regulation in mental and physical health.
27. Turner, M. J., Miller, A., Youngs, H., Barber, N., Brick, N. E., Chadha, N. J., Chandler, C., Coyle, M., Didymus, F. F., Evans, A. L., Jones, K., McCann, B., Meijen, C., & Rossato, C. J. L. (2022). “I must do this!”: A latent profile analysis approach to understanding the role of irrational beliefs and motivation regulation in mental and physical health. Journal of Sports Sciences, 40(8), 934–949.
28. Vassou, C., Tsiampalis, T., Georgousopoulou, E. N., Chrysohoou, C., Yannakoulia, M., Pitsavos, C., Cropley, M., & Panagiotakos, D. B. (2022a). Irrational beliefs and health anxiety in relation to hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and lifestyle behaviors; The attica epidemiological study. Atherosclerosis, 355, 172–173.
29. Wang, R., Zhou, C., & Parry, M. (2023). Health locus of control and self-management behaviours among individuals with ischaemic heart disease: Protocol for a scoping review. BMJ Open, 13(10), e075277.
30. Zeinali, A., Dolatian, M., Janatiataie, P., Shams, J., & Nasiri, M. (2021). Comparison of health-promoting lifestyle and irrational health beliefs in healthy pregnant women and gestational diabetes mellitus. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 10, 262.

Add your comments about this article : Your username or Email:
CAPTCHA

Send email to the article author


Rights and permissions
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License.

© 2026 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 | Journal of Psychological Science

Designed & Developed by : Yektaweb

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)