Changes in Touch Avoidance, Stress, and Anxiety During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy

In the present study we analyzed how attitudes toward touch have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic in an Italian sample, through two different studies: in the first we contacted participants of the Italian validation study of the Touch Avoidance Questionnaire, asking them to take part in a follow-up study (N = 31, 64.5% women, age 42.58 +/- 15.15); in the second we recruited a new sample of 717 people (73.92% women, age 34.25 +/- 13.11), comparing it to the full validation sample of the Touch Avoidance Questionnaire (N = 335, 64.48% women, age = 35.82 +/- 14.32) to further investigate the relationship between the pandemic, stress responses, fear of contagion, anxiety, and attitudes toward touch. Overall, we found higher post-pandemic scores for touch avoidance toward strangers and family members and lower scores in touch avoidance toward friends of either gender, along with a slight increase in anxiety and stress. Touch avoidance was also positively related to anxiety and/or stress levels except for touch avoidance toward same-sex friends, for which the relationship with anxiety was negative. Surprisingly, we found that young people were the most anxious, despite older people being more at-risk of dying from COVID-19. Women were slightly more stressed out. COVID-19-related fears were significant predictors of touch avoidance toward partners, friends and strangers, but not of touch avoidance toward family. The results suggest that touch avoidance increased during the pandemic (except toward same-sex friends), together with anxiety and stress levels, but the change was relatively small.