ИСТИНА

Introduction Since stress and anxiety are significant manifestations of psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, we studied their role in making a decision about vaccination. Objective: to study the relationship between the intention to be vaccinated against COVID-19 with health anxiety and stress levels. Materials and methods The methodological complex includes the author's socio-demographic questionnaire (Pervichko, 2020, 2021, 2022); the questionnaire "Scale of perceived stress-10" (Ababkov, 2016); the questionnaire "Perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic" (Pervichko et al., 2020), developed on the basis of the Russian-language version of the E. Broadbent's short questionnaire about the perception of disease (Broadbent, 2006); the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Spielberger, 2002) and the "Short Health Anxiety Inventory" (Pervichko et al., 2020). The study involved 232 respondents who did not have COVID-19 (average age – 29.1 ± 13.7 years). Among the respondents, 68.5% have already been vaccinated, 23.3% do not plan to be vaccinated and 8.2% plan to perform the procedure. Results Among vaccinated respondents, the level of situational anxiety (43.6±12,1vs39,2±11; p=0.05) and stress (29.1±7.2 vs25,4±8.3; p=0.005) is higher than that of those who do not plan to be vaccinated. This may be due to the fact that vaccinated respondents have more pronounced anxiety about their health than among those who do not intend to be vaccinated (16.7±6,6vs14,1±7, p=0.046). Regarding the perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, respondents who are not going to be vaccinated (17.5±6.4) have the lowest estimate of the threat to life from the pandemic compared to vaccinated (22.5±6.5, p=0.000) and respondents who are going to be vaccinated (21.7±7.2, p=0.047). In addition, the vaccinated respondents rate the ability to control the spread of the disease more highly than those who are not going to be vaccinated (7.5±3.8 vs 5±3.3, p=0.000). Conclusions Higher health anxiety, situational anxiety, perceived stress, and greater perceived life threat due to coronavirus contribute to COVID-19 immunization procedures, which is accompanied by perceptions of greater control of the pandemic. Disclosure Research is supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project No. 21-18-00624.