Public concerns and burdens associated with face mask-wearing: Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This study attempts to identify and categorize the key concerns of wearing masks. An online survey was used to collect data from 2746 people in the United States. Results show that the mask-wearing concerns can be classified into three categories; discomfort barriers (physical discomfort and communication discomfort), external factors (overstated news about coronavirus threat, political beliefs, and absence of mask-wearing culture), and usability issues (lack of effectiveness, unnecessariness of masks in certain cases, and mask maintenance issues). The findings demonstrate that all mentioned concerns strongly shape people's attitudes toward wearing masks, except for political beliefs and lack of effectiveness.

COVID-19 safe campus evaluation for universities by a hybrid interval type-2 fuzzy decision-making model

“…Sousan et al ( 2021 ), Dhama et al ( 2021 ) Reducing touch It means limiting the use of common materials, preventing contact as much as possible to reduce the virus’s spread, and ensuring the disinfection of common materials at frequent intervals. It also includes measures to reduce the number of people in the environment and to use personal protective equipment McGee et al ( 2021 ), Esmaeilzadeh ( 2022 ), World Health Organization ( 2020a ) Social distance In order to prevent the spread of the disease, it means taking measures such as keeping the number of patients at a level that will not force the health system, making capacity plans, restricting mobility, providing different entrance and exit doors, and not speaking loudly in the environment Poole et al ( 2021 ), D’Orazio et al ( 2021 ), Kobayashi et al ( 2020 ), Shen et al ( 2021 ), Byrne et al ( 2020 ), McGee et al ( 2021 ), Wilson et al ( 2020 ), Mossa-Basha et al ( 2020 ), Greenhalgh et al ( 2021 ), Fischetti et al ( 2021 ), Bartolucci et al ( 2022 ), Ugail et al ( 2021 ) Planning Training plans It covers the education plans for the personnel of higher education institutions, students, and visitors Lordan et al ( 2021 ), Wilson et al ( 2020 ), Chisita et al ( 2022 ) Emergency action plan It covers the plans made to be able to organize immediately, intervene regularly, ensure that the institution remains operational, and minimize the damages that may arise in case of a diagnosis and/or suspicion of contagious disease among staff and students Izumi et al ( 2020 ) Infection and control plans It covers the necessary arrangements and plans to minimize the risk of people encountering the virus Poole et al ( 2021 ), Shen et al ( 2021 ), Wilson et al ( 2020 ), Esmaeilzadeh ( 2022 ), Cohen et al ( 2021 ) Cleaning plans …”

Effect of short-term use of FFP2 mask on salivary metabolome of young healthy volunteers: A pilot study.

“…This can claim signi cant toll on public health given the recent rise in positivity and caseload in several parts of the world (Ford et al, 2021). In addition to behavioural and socio-political issues (Howard, 2020) (Burger et al, 2022) (MacIntyre et al, 2021) (Esmaeilzadeh, 2022) (Kemmelmeier and Jami, 2021) the reluctance may also be driven by concerns regarding the physiological impact of mask usage. Several studies have documented signi cant itching, breathlessness, increase in pulse rate and heart rate as well as decrease in SpO 2 , particularly among elder individuals or those with respiratory conditions (Saccomanno et al, 2022) (Li et al, 2005) (Kisielinski et al, 2021) (Hu et al, 2020) (Fikenzer et al, 2020) (Kyung et al, 2020).…”

Development and initial validation of the attitudes toward face mask use scale (ATFMUS)

“…In addition, any reduction in community transmission cushions healthcare systems from extra COVID-19 related demands like hospital beds, intensive care unit (ICU) facilities, and ventilators ( Greenhalgh et al., 2020 ; Sousa et al., 2020 ). Despite the widespread awareness of the role of PFMU to prevent COVID-19, many people resisted wearing face masks or used them wrongly, and others abandoned face mask use all together after vaccination ( Bartsch et al., 2022 ; Esmaeilzadeh, 2022 ; Mallinas et al., 2021 ; Pal and Yadav, 2022 ; Taylor and Asmundson, 2021 ; Sikakulya et al., 2021 ). This resistance may have indicated three things: First, that awareness, instructions, threats, and motivation did not necessarily translate into the desirable health behavior of consistent and proper PFMU ( Kelly and Barker, 2016 ; Michie and West, 2021 ; Tadesse et al., 2020 ); Second, that people developed psychological reactance to mandatory PFMU ( Rosenberg and Siegel, 2018 ; Taylor and Asmundson, 2021 ); and third some people had anti-mask attitudes ( Mallinas et al., 2021 ) which lowered the likelihood of PFMU.…”