Initial psychological responses to Influenza A, H1N1 (""Swine flu"")

Goodwin, Robin; Haque, Shamsul; Neto, Felix; Myers, Lynn B

In Europe only, we asked additional closed-ended questions about stopping or reducing eating pork as a result of the pandemic (yes/no), and the precautionary desire for anti-viral drugs at home ('would you like to have your own anti-viral drugs at home just in case'? 'Have you tried to obtain any anti-viral medicines to keep just in case?' (both yes/no answers)). We asked about the mortality rate in ordinary, seasonal flu (five point scale, under 50,000, 50-000-99,000, 100,000-249,000, 250,000-500,000 and over 500,000), as well as whether the symptoms of swine flu differed from seasonal flu, and whether seasonal flu vaccination provided immunity against swine flu (both yes/no answers). Throughout, statistical analysis for structured questions was through chi-square analyses and Pearson product moment correlation.