Trust in sources of information on COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic's first wave and incident persistent symptoms in the population-based CONSTANCES cohort: A prospective study

Objective: To examine the association between trust in different sources of information on COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic and the burden of incident persistent symptoms. Methods: This prospective study used data from the SAPRIS and SAPRIS-Sérologie surveys nested in the French CONSTANCES population-based cohort. Trust in different information sources was measured between April 6 and May 4, 2020. Persistent symptoms that emerged afterwards were self-reported between December 2020 and January 2021. The associated psychological burden was measured with the somatic symptom disorder B criteria scale (SSD-12). The analyses were adjusted for gender, age, education, income, self-rated health, SARS-CoV-2 serology tests, and self-reported COVID-19. Results: Among 20,985 participants [mean age (SD), 49.0 years (12.7); 50.2% women], those with higher trust in government/journalists at baseline had fewer incident persistent symptoms at follow-up (estimate (SE) for one IQR increase: −0.21 (0.03), p < 0.001). Participants with higher trust in government/journalists and medical doctors/scientists were less likely to have ≥1 symptom (odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for one IQR increase: 0.87 (0.82–0.91) and 0.91 (0.85–0.98), respectively). Among 3372 participants (16.1%) who reported ≥1 symptom, higher trust in government/journalists and medical doctors/scientists predicted lower SSD-12 scores (−0.39 (0.17), p = 0.02 and − 0.85 (0.24), p < 0.001, respectively), whereas higher trust in social media predicted higher scores in those with lower trust in government/journalists (0.90 (0.34), p = 0.008). These associations did not depend upon surrogate markers of infection with SARS-CoV-2. Conclusions: Trust in information sources on COVID-19 may be associated with incident persistent symptoms and associated psychological burden, regardless of infection with SARS-CoV-2.