Illness attitudes, mood, and dreams during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: An international study

Abstract

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has strongly impacted the world. Recent research on the pandemic has found a significant impact on sleep habits, dreaming, and psychological well-being. We investigated sociodemographic and COVID-19 related variables, attitudes toward illness (using the Illness Attitude Scale, or IAS), mood (using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale, or DASS-21), and oneiric activity (using participant’s Most Recent Dream) during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in a sample of 620 Italian, Canadian and Mexican adult subjects (79.9% women; ages 18-73 years, M = 27, SD = 11.5). Results indicated that: a) participants presented problematic scores of worries about illness and health habits, as well as moderate levels of depression, anxiety, and stress; b) female participants reported higher levels of negative illness attitudes, as well as higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress; c) participants knowing a person who had the COVID-19 disease reported higher levels of stress, while participants knowing a COVID-19-related death reported higher levels of negative illness attitudes and higher levels of anxiety; d) participants reporting negative emotional tone in their dreams also reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress; finally, e) the most represented emotional dream tone was negative, the most represented emotions in participants’ dreams were anxiety and being scared, while the most represented actions were life or death situations. In sum, the findings of this study indicate that the COVID-19 lockdown measures, categorized as a catastrophic and traumatic event, significantly affect people’s oneiric imagery, and they indicate that dream interpretation may be an effective approach to alleviate COVID-19-related psychological distress.