{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,17]],"date-time":"2026-04-17T22:45:49Z","timestamp":1776465949472,"version":"3.51.2"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,31]],"date-time":"2024-07-31T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1722384000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title><jats:p>Excessive fear of a threatening condition or situation can result in individuals engaging in unhealthy behaviors, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Identifying the influential factors of fear can be effective in designing and implementing health-center interventions to control and reduce the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>This study was a cross-sectional design implemented in Iran in 2022. Participants were adults 18\u201365\u2009years of age recruited randomly from primary Health Care Services Centers (HCSCs) by medical records (<jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>\u2009=\u2009380, 64.7% female, mean (SD) age 32.14\u2009\u00b1\u200910.98\u2009years) in urban and rural areas of the county. The data collection included a demographic form, Fear of COVID-19 questionnaire, Perceived Barriers of COVID-19 preventive behaviors, Self-efficacy, and Health Literacy for Iranian Adults (HELIA) questionnaire.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>It was determined that the fear of COVID-19 showed statistically significant differences according to gender (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value\u2009=\u20090.013), education level (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value\u2009=\u20090.001), and job status (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value\u2009=\u20090.001). According to the hierarchical linear regression, educational level (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value\u2009=\u20090.001; \u03b2\u2009=\u20090.665), job (\u03b2\u2009=\u20090.126; <jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value\u2009=\u20090.018), self-efficacy (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value\u2009=\u20090.015; \u03b2\u2009=\u20090.103), and Health Literacy (HL) (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value\u2009=\u20090.001; \u03b2\u2009=\u20090.446) were significant predictors of fear of COVID-19. Also, among variables, educational level (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value\u2009=\u20090.001; \u03b2\u2009=\u20090.665) and HL (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value\u2009=\u20090.001; \u03b2\u2009=\u20090.446) were the most important predictors for fear of COVID-19.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title><jats:p>This research shows that HL has a potential and determinative role in controlling fear of COVID-19. The findings can help healthy policymakers and healthcare providers design HL-based programs in similar epidemics and pandemic situations.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2024.1394957","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,31]],"date-time":"2024-07-31T04:36:58Z","timestamp":1722400618000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Predictors of fear of COVID-19 in a low-income country: health literacy is important"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Soheila","family":"Ranjbaran","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Khalil Maleki","family":"Chollou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Salar","family":"Abedi-Nerbin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Towhid","family":"Babazadeh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"95","DOI":"10.1016\/j.puhe.2020.06.030","article-title":"The enigma of health literacy and COVID-19 pandemic","volume":"185","author":"Abdel-Latif","year":"2020","journal-title":"Public Health"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1612","DOI":"10.1093\/heapro\/daaa040","article-title":"Critical health literacy and the COVID-19 crisis","volume":"35","author":"Abel","year":"2020","journal-title":"Health Promot. 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