Brazilian attitudes towards Covid-19 and its relationship with personal conditions, political identification, empathy and susceptibility to accept fake news: a study during the third wave

The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the association between susceptibility to accepting misinformation regarding the novel coronavirus (Covid-19), political party identification, empathy, and agreement with the public figures’ stance on the disease, with attitudes and intentions to adhere to the recommendations of health authorities during the third wave of the pandemic in Brazil. The study included 309 adults (mean = 26.73 ± 8.85; 57.3% cisgender women) who completed an electronic form and Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The findings indicate that personal conditions, political identification and empathy significantly predicted willingness to adopt measures to prevent the spread of the disease, alignment with public figures who supported stricter mobility restrictions, and agreement with the use of vaccination as a strategy for epidemiological control of the virus. These results are discussed in the context of previous studies, emphasizing the need for health authorities and managers to consider the effect of these psychosocial variables on the population’s attitudes and positioning when formulating Health Education strategies.