Factors Related to COVID-19 Preventive Behaviors: A Structural Equation Model

Abstract

Background: While COVID-19 has rapidly spread around the world, and vaccines are not widely available to the general population, the World Health Organization outlines preventive behavior as the most effective way to limit the rapid spread of the virus. Preventive behavior is associated with a number of factors that both encourage and discourage prevention.Aim: The aim of this research was to study COVID-19 threat appraisal, fear of COVID-19, trust in COVID-19 information sources, COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and the relationship of socio-demographic variables (gender, age, level of education, place of residence, and employment status) to COVID-19 preventive behavior.Methods: The data originate from a national cross-sectional online survey (N = 2,608) undertaken in July 2020. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.Results: COVID-19 threat appraisal, trust in COVID-19 information sources, and fear of COVID-19 are all significant predictors of COVID-19 preventive behaviors. Together they explain 26.7% of the variance of this variable. COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs significantly negatively predict COVID-19 threat appraisal (R2 = 0.206) and trust in COVID-19 information sources (R2 = 0.190). COVID-19 threat appraisal contributes significantly and directly to the explanation of the fear of COVID-19 (R2 = 0.134). Directly, as well as mediated by COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, threat appraisal predicts trust in COVID-19 information sources (R2 = 0.190). The relationship between COVID-19 threat appraisal and COVID-19 preventive behaviors is partially mediated by fear of COVID-19 (indirect effect 28.6%) and trust in information sources (15.8%). Socio-demographic variables add very little in prediction of COVID-19 preventive behavior.Conclusions: The study results demonstrate that COVID-19 threat appraisal is the most important factor associated with COVID-19 preventive behavior. Those Latvian residents with higher COVID-19 threat appraisal, experienced higher levels of fear of COVID-19, had more trust in COVID-19 information sources, and were more actively involved in following COVID-19 preventive behaviors. COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs negatively predict COVID-19 threat appraisal and trust in COVID-19 information sources, but not the COVID-19 preventive behaviors. Socio-demographic factors do not play an important role here.

Knowledge of COVID-19 and Its Relationship with Preventive Behaviors and Vaccination among Adults in Northern Thailand’s Community

“…This is consistent with the notion of Bandura [47], who mentioned that a person's learning is caused by many components of the learning process, especially the person's ability. A prior study found that access to COVID-19 information and awareness of prevention measures and their benefits increases the likelihood of participating in more COVID-19 prevention measures [55]. Interestingly, those who are elderly, unemployed, have a current disease, or use herbs have lower COVID-19 knowledge.…”

COmpliance with pandemic COmmands Scale (COCOS): The relationship between compliance with COVID-19 measures and sociodemographic and attitudinal variables

“…Furthermore, people who were afraid of getting infected, afraid of a loved one getting infected, or worried about the health crisis tended to display higher levels of compliance. Jørgensen et al [ 40 ] and Šuriņa et al [ 41 ] also found that fear and perceptions of threat were related to greater compliance.…”

Systematic Review of Socio-Emotional Values Within Organizations

“…It is difficult to maintain critical thinking in this case, and often people fail in this task because it is easier to follow emotional thinking (Wynes, 2021;Yu et al, 2021), which has often negatively influenced socio-political decisions, for example, creating and maintaining populist movements, which are stronger in uncertain times (Bone, 2021). Stakeholder accountability moves its actions through a complex situation, especially during an actual socio-economic crisis, where there is a significant impairment in terms of social cohesion and trust between people and institutions (Antinyan et al, 2021;Fikukova et al, 2021;Surina et al, 2021;Ye et al, 2021). The accountability of stakeholders means that a single person or a group of people operate for an individual initiative, without an institutional setting, following their own principles, intrinsic rules, and ethics (Salsbury et al, 2018).…”