Methods by which the population should be informed when going through a pandemic
such as COVID-19 have been questioned because of its influence on the adoption of preventive
measures and its effects on mental health. Non-health workers are at risk of psychological distress
from exposure to contaminated people or materials or by having to stay at home and adapt their
activity to telework. The objective of the study is to analyze information the public receives about
COVID-19 and its influence on their level of distress. For this, 1089 questionnaires from non-health
workers were collected online between 26 March and 26 April 2020 in Spain, and analysed and
distributed by snowball effect. 492 participants carried out essential activities away from home, and
597 did so from home. They were surveyed about information received about COVID-19 regarding
its source, time, assessment, or the beliefs expressed in it. Mental health was also measured with
Goldberg’s General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). The classification and regression tree (CART)
method was used to design a binary tree with sample cases. It has been found that the time spent
learning about COVID-19 and the level of knowledge about symptoms, pathways, prevention,
treatment, or prognosis are associated with the level of distress, where 25% of participants were found
to have spent more than 3 h daily on this activity. Social media and television are the most widely
used sources, but they are considered to be of lower quality and usefulness than official sources. There
is greater confidence in healthcare professionals than in the health system, and the main concern of
those working away from home is spreading the virus to family members. It has been concluded that
there is a need to enhance quality and truthful information on the Internet for non-health workers
due to its accessibility, which should be constantly updated, a fact which international and national
public bodies, research centers, and journal publishers have begun to understand during the current
pandemic. Such quality information is needed to combat distress.