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Different countries were successful in different ways in their attempts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, which compromised the health of many people. Stress levels rose and the restrictive measures impacted the citizens' trust in institutions. An important resource for managing crises is a country’s economic growth. Given that the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is one indicator of economic growth, the goal of this study is to investigate the differences in perceived stress and trust in institutions between European countries categorized into below-average, average and above-average GDP per capita levels during the coronavirus pandemic. The analyses of N = 84,080 participants from 29 countries gathered via an online survey showed that citizens of higher-level GDP per capita countries experienced less stress and had more trust in institutions. Compared to the average level, Croatian citizens experienced somewhat higher stress and had somewhat higher trust in the government’s measures. These results imply that economic growth is one of the country-level factors associated with the quality of managing the coronavirus pandemic.

The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173 429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to investigate how psychological responses differ across countries and cultures, and how this has impacted behaviour, coping and trust in government efforts to slow the spread of the virus. Starting in March 2020, COVIDiSTRESS leveraged the convenience of unpaid online recruitment to generate public data. The objective of the present analysis is to understand relationships between psychological responses in the early months of global coronavirus restrictions and help understand how different government measures succeed or fail in changing public behaviour. There were variations between and within countries. Although Western Europeans registered as more concerned over COVID-19, more stressed, and having slightly more trust in the governments' efforts, there was no clear geographical pattern in compliance with behavioural measures. Detailed plots illustrating between-countries differences are provided. Using both traditional and Bayesian analyses, we found that individuals who worried about getting sick worked harder to protect themselves and others. However, concern about the coronavirus itself did not account for all of the variances in experienced stress during the early months of COVID-19 restrictions. More alarmingly, such stress was associated with less compliance. Further, those most concerned over the coronavirus trusted in government measures primarily where policies were strict. While concern over a disease is a source of mental distress, other factors including strictness of protective measures, social support and personal lockdown conditions must also be taken into consideration to fully appreciate the psychological impact of COVID-19 and to understand why some people fail to follow behavioural guidelines intended to protect themselves and others from infection. The Stage 1 manuscript associated with this submission received in-principle acceptance (IPA) on 18 May 2020. Following IPA, the accepted Stage 1 version of the manuscript was preregistered on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/ytbcs. This preregistration was performed prior to data analysis. Fil: Lieberoth, Andreas. University Aarhus; Dinamarca Fil: Lin, Shiang Yi. University of Hong Kong; China Fil: Stöckli, Sabrina. University of Bern; Suiza Fil: Han, Hyemin. University of Alabama at Birmingahm; Estados Unidos Fil: Kowal, Marta. Wroclaw University; Polonia Fil: Gelpi, Rebekah. University of Toronto; Canadá Fil: Chrona, Stavroula. King's College London; Reino Unido Fil: Tran, Thao Phuong. State University of Colorado at Boulder; Estados Unidos Fil: Jeftić, Alma. International Christian University; Japón Fil: Rasmussen, Jesper. University Aarhus; Dinamarca Fil: Cakal, Huseyin. Keele University.; Reino Unido Fil: Milfont, Taciano L.. University of Waikato; Nueva Zelanda Fil: Reyna, Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas; Argentina Fil: The COVIDiSTRESS global survey consortium. No especifíca

To tackle the spread of COVID‐19, governments worldwide have implemented restrictive public health behavioural measures. Whether and when these measures lead to positive or negative psychological outcomes is still debated. In this study, drawing on a large sample of individuals (N total = 89,798) from 45 nations, we investigated whether the stringency of public health measures implemented at the outset of the COVID‐19 pandemic in March–May 2020 was associated with individuals’ levels of stress and compliance. Moreover, we addressed the question of how these associations may be moderated by the measures’ implementation lag, nations’ tolerance for unequal distributions of power (i.e., power distance), and individuals’ institutional trust. Linear mixed models suggested that slower implementation of less stringent measures was associated with higher stress and lower compliance. Also, rapid implementation of stricter measures was associated with a mild increase in stress. Such effects were especially pronounced in countries with less tolerance for inequality. Albeit significant, the moderating effect of institutional trust was very small. The results suggest that it may be important to consider the measures’ implementation lag when tackling the spread of COVID‐19, but findings should be interpreted in relation to the data collection period.