Study title

Full edition for scientific use. The Center for Social & Health Innovation (CSHI) has conducted an online two-wave panel survey to investigate potential social consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic. In the first wave, 1024 Austrian individuals were surveyed. The second wave was conducted in June 2020. The study contains indicators on people’s information habits, their attitudes toward COVID-19 policies, their knowledge, and the fears related to the crisis. About the data. The data collection was implemented by Dynata, a private market research company. We used predefined quotes based on Statistics Austria population data. The composition of the sample largely represents the population structure of Austria. Even though the composition is similar to the Austrian population, this is not a random sample, thus we cannot make precise predictions about population distributions. The survey was conducted between April 1 and April 7, 2020. Response rate. The survey received 1800 klicks and 1725 individuals started the survey. Of those 1725 individuals, 33 individuals did not agree to participate after reading the informed consent, 555 were screened out due to full quotas, and 113 individuals did not complete the survey for other reasons. A total of 1024 individuals completed the survey. Wave 2. The second wave was collected between June 2 and June 10. Invitations were sent out to wave 1 participants only. The second wave received 769 clicks and 632 completed the survey. Of those, 320 were female, 312 were male. 105 had compulsory school degrees only, 305 went to vocational school, 115 had high school degrees, and 104 a college degree. Mean age was 49.30 (SD = 17.53).