Author: DRAGOȘ TOMA-DANILA, DRAGOȘ TATARU, EDUARD NASTASE

Abstract: In order for strategies in seismic risk mitigation to be effective, they need to consider both the level of risk but also the needs and attitude of people subjected to the desired change. Questionnaires are one of the most common tools to assess the perception and preparedness of people to earthquakes, however we found that many designs and interpretations are limited to the obvious remarks and are not conceived or analyzed in ways enabling the determination of sociological profiles and geospatial patterns. Through this paper we show the potential of new questionnaire-based approaches and interpretations, highlighting aspects such as i) how well prepared in case of an earthquake people think and actually are depending also on their age, ii) does living in an area with high hazard values influences perception of risk and what is the difference between risk in locality versus individual risk, iii) is there a difference between how people with earthquake knowledge would behave in case of having an earthquake early warning solution compared to people with less knowledge or iv) which ways of communicating risk is considered more appropriate for different age groups. As input, we use more than 410 responses collected for most of Romania (out of which around half are for Bucharest Area), through two easy-to-fill online questionnaires: one focusing on earthquake perception as well as the level of knowledge and vision toward preparedness strategies, and another shaped as a checklist test, related to the individual level of preparedness.

Keywords: earthquake, seismic risk, perception, Romania, preparedness, questionnaire.

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Author: CRISTINA SAVU, IULIANA ARMAȘ

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic started in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and the first cases in Romania were registered in February 2020. Those in the front line in the fight against the pandemic, the medical staff, were the most affected from a psychologically and physically point of view. This study examines the perception of medical staff in isolation after coming into contact with confirmed positive patients with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The study identifies psychologically differentiated patterns of reaction and behaviour based on social and professional determinants.

Keywords: perception, anxiety, social distance, SARS-CoV-2.

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