JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Given the high incidence of psychological issues, violence, and substance abuse problems reported during the COVID-19 pandemic, study of how these conditions may impact an individual’s likelihood for SARS-CoV-2 infection is important. Here, we analyzed data from a survey of 366 adults across the United States (ages 18-70). Included was the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs-Short Screener (GAIN-SS) questionnaire, which indicates a history of high-risk and destructive behaviors, and questions regarding COVID-19 infection. GAIN-SS responses were compared between those reporting and not reporting COVID-19. GAIN-SS behaviors that differed between COVID-19 responses were then analyzed using multivariable logistic regression (MVLR) with iterative resampling. Those reporting COVID-19 more frequently indicated past GAIN-SS behaviors. MVLR revealed that GAIN-SS behaviors, particularly gambling, selling drugs, and attention problems, accurately modeled self-reported COVID-19 with model accuracies ranging from 77.42-99.55% +/- 4.49-5.86%. That is, those that exhibited destructive and high-risk behaviors prior to, and during, the pandemic could be discriminated from those that did not exhibit these behaviors when modeling COVID-19 likelihood. Together, this preliminary study provides insight into how a history of destructive behaviors influence infection susceptibility – offering one explanation for why some people have increased infection susceptibility to COVID-19.