General Population’s Psychological Perceptions of COVID-19: A Systematic Review

During the COVID-19 pandemic, general population's mental health may be influenced by their perceptions of major pandemic issues. Therefore, a systematic search was conducted to screen out those concerns and analyse the impacts. EBSCO, Scopus and Web of Science were searched for publications from inception to 1 February 2023. Nineteen articles were extracted and four issues were screened out as general population's major concerns, namely "Risk perception", "Government trust", "Media coverage and authenticity", and "Conspiracy theory". The population's perceptions of those issues could affect their mental health by arousing emotional reactions, which vary in different countries, social classes and groups, and would change in different stages of virus outbreak. The findings suggest that the general population's attitudes towards COVID-19-related social issues could affect their psychological health and should receive more concerns. As different issues are related to one another, an integrated solution system is in need, which would be helpful for coping with similar public emergencies in the future.