Strengthen your resistance while confined: online resources to you keep yourself protected

Nearly two weeks have passed since Spain declared a state of alarm, and around the world citizens are working to confront the greatest health crisis of the 21st century. Confining the population is just one of the drastic measures that the Spanish Government has taken to fight the spread of the coronavirus, following in the footsteps of other countries that implemented exceptional measures like China and Italy.

Psychology experts are now studying how this limitation to our freedom of movement and the overall climate of uncertainty might impact the mental and psychological state of the populace. One of these experts is the UOC's very own Manuel Armayones, a researcher at the eHealth Center and professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences who specializes in behavioural design as it relates to technologies. This branch of psychology researches how ICTs can be applied to promote a change in people's habits.

Armayones said that "after fifteen days shut up at home, going out only for groceries or to work, even less if you're teleworking, it's normal to start to see mental states of exhaustion or family and work situations that test our ability to do the right thing by staying at home".

Along those lines, the behavioural design expert warned that normalizing the situation of confinement may result in institutional messages – effective so far – having the opposite effect, inciting people to not comply with the dictated measures. The psychologist recognized that there "may be cases in which people drop their guard and forget to follow the recommendations, such as remembering to wash their hands or not to touch their face or not to go out unless absolutely necessary".  

Tips to adopt and follow good habits  

Given the panorama, the eHealth Center wants to further its commitment to e-health and offer a series of online resources and tips so we can better handle our confinement. Twitter is the chosen medium for this psychological intervention, which is fitting giving the quantity of information – both true and false – to be found there, especially as of late. Now more than ever it is important to be able to distinguish between was is real and reliable and what is not.

The online intervention will use the eHealth Center's Twitter channel to provide the public with resources so they can correctly follow the measures adopted by the authorities. Professor Armayones is at the helm of the new service, which he co-designed with fellow eHC researcher and psychologist Noemí Robles. Ms Robles said that its aim is to "ensure that the population has the practical advice necessary to design healthy habits that allow them to follow hygiene and self-protection measures against COVID-19 (wash your hands, don't touch your face...) as well as those dictated by the health authorities, one of which is confinement".

While the lockdown order is in place, they will be posting three tweets a week, each one dedicated to adopting a specific habit. Together, the tips will form a set of guidelines on Twitter that users will be able to go back and refer to whenever they want with the hashtag #eHCovid19UOC. Publishing the tips in stages will allow Armayones and Robles to "keep the intervention active as long as necessary based on the needs that arise from confinement," Armayones said.

So that the resources can be used in other countries that need to apply lockdown measures, the content will be published in Catalan, Spanish and English. With that in mind, Robles said: "With these guidelines about changing habits during confinement, we are not just speaking to those who have already been at home for some time; it is for anyone who is confined, even if it has just started".