Self-Reported Compliance With Personal Preventive Measures Among Chinese Factory Workers at the Beginning of Work Resumption Following the COVID-19 Outbreak: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Abstract

Background Maintaining compliance with personal preventive measures is important to achieve a balance of COVID-19 pandemic control and work resumption. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate self-reported compliance with four personal measures to prevent COVID-19 among a sample of factory workers in Shenzhen, China, at the beginning of work resumption in China following the COVID-19 outbreak. These preventive measures included consistent wearing of face masks in public spaces (the workplace and other public settings); sanitizing hands using soap, liquid soap, or alcohol-based hand sanitizer after returning from public spaces or touching public installations and equipment; avoiding social and meal gatherings; and avoiding crowded places. Methods The participants were adult factory workers who had resumed work in Shenzhen, China. A stratified two-stage cluster sampling design was used. We randomly selected 14 factories that had resumed work. All full-time employees aged ≥18 years who had resumed work in these factories were invited to complete a web-based survey. Out of 4158 workers who had resumed work in these factories, 3035 (73.0%) completed the web-based survey from March 1 to 14, 2020. Multilevel logistic regression models were fitted. Results Among the 3035 participants, 2938 (96.8%) and 2996 (98.7%) reported always wearing a face mask in the workplace and in other public settings, respectively, in the past month. However, frequencies of self-reported sanitizing hands (2152/3035, 70.9%), avoiding social and meal gatherings (2225/3035, 73.3%), and avoiding crowded places (1997/3035, 65.8%) were relatively low. At the individual level, knowledge about COVID-19 (adjusted odds ratios [AORs] from 1.16, CI 1.10-1.24, to 1.29, CI 1.21-1.37), perceived risk (AORs from 0.58, CI 0.50-0.68, to 0.85, CI 0.72-0.99) and severity (AOR 1.05, CI 1.01-1.09, and AOR 1.07, CI 1.03-1.11) of COVID-19, perceived effectiveness of preventive measures by the individual (AORs from 1.05, CI 1.00-1.10, to 1.09, CI 1.04-1.13), organization (AOR 1.30, CI 1.20-1.41), and government (AORs from 1.14, CI 1.04-1.25, to 1.21, CI 1.02-1.42), perceived preparedness for a potential outbreak after work resumption (AORs from 1.10, CI 1.00-1.21, to 1.50, CI 1.36-1.64), and depressive symptoms (AORs from 0.93, CI 0.91-0.94, to 0.96, CI 0.92-0.99) were associated with self-reported compliance with at least one personal preventive measure. At the interpersonal level, exposure to COVID-19–specific information through official media channels (AOR 1.08, CI 1.04-1.11) and face-to-face communication (AOR 0.90, CI 0.83-0.98) were associated with self-reported sanitizing of hands. The number of preventive measures implemented in the workplace was positively associated with self-reported compliance with all four preventive measures (AORs from 1.30, CI 1.08-1.57, to 1.63, CI 1.45-1.84). Conclusions Measures are needed to strengthen hand hygiene and physical distancing among factory workers to reduce transmission following work resumption. Future programs in workplaces should address these factors at multiple levels.

Behavioral Intention to Receive a COVID-19 Vaccination Among Chinese Factory Workers: Cross-sectional Online Survey

“…As compared to frontline workers, management staff were more willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. Studies among factory workers have shown that management staff were more likely to adopt personal measures to prevent COVID-19 [28]. Having children was associated with a lower intention to receive a COVID-19 vaccination; future studies should explore whether there are any specific barriers for parents.…”

“…Random intercept models were used to allow the intercept of the regression model to vary across study sites, which could account for intracorrelated nested data. Multilevel logistic regression models are commonly used in studies with similar sampling methods [28,56]. A univariate two-level logistic regression model first assessed the significance of the association between each of the background characteristics and the dependent variables.…”

“…This might explain the lower intention to receive COVID-19 vaccination among health care workers (63.0%-76.4%) [23,24] as compared to that of the general population (57.6%-94.3%) [14][15][16][17][20][21][22]. Factory workers who resumed work during the pandemic are another subpopulation at higher risk of COVID-19 infection than that of the general population, as many factories are crowded settings, making physical distancing challenging [28]. COVID-19 outbreaks in the workplace have been reported in China and other countries [28][29][30].…”

“…Factory workers who resumed work during the pandemic are another subpopulation at higher risk of COVID-19 infection than that of the general population, as many factories are crowded settings, making physical distancing challenging [28]. COVID-19 outbreaks in the workplace have been reported in China and other countries [28][29][30]. Moreover, most of the Chinese factory workers are young.…”

Assessing the Robustness of a Factory Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Fuzzy Collaborative Intelligence Approach

“… In the experiment, “the speed of vaccine acquisition” and “the performance of COVID-19 containment” were two critical factors to assess the robustness of a factory to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was similar to Tesla’s practice of reopening its factories in China and USA [ 78 ]. The two regions have performed well in containing the COVID-19 pandemic and/or developing vaccines [ 79 , 80 ]. An existing method, the fuzzy extent analysis (FEA)-FWA method [ 81 ], was also applied to the collected data for comparison.…”