Abstract
This study assessed fear of the novel coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19), preventive COVID-19 infection behaviors, and the association between fear of COVID-19 and preventive COVID-19 infection behaviors among older people in Iran and Taiwan. Older people aged over 60 years (n = 144 for Iranians and 139 for Taiwanese) completed the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) and two items on preventive COVID-19 infection behaviors (i.e., hand washing and mouth covering when sneezing). Iranian older people had a significantly higher level of fear of COVID-19 than did Taiwanese older people. Moreover, Iranian older people had significantly lower frequencies of preventive COVID-19 infection behaviors than did Taiwanese older people. Different timings in implementing COVID-19 infection control policies in Iran and Taiwan may explain why Iranian older people had greater fear of COVID-19 and lower preventive COVID-19 infection behaviors than did Taiwanese older people.
Highlights
Depression, anxiety, and stress are relatively common among older adults [1, 2]
Participants’ demographic and clinical characteristics are presented in Table 2, which shows that the Iranian sample (n = 144; mean = 65.59; standard deviation (SD) = 6.65) was significantly younger than the Taiwanese sample (n = 139; mean = 71.73; SD = 7.90; p < 0.001)
A significantly higher level of fear of COVID-19 was observed in Iranian older people when compared to Taiwanese older people
Summary
Nearly 10% of older adults suffer from depressive and anxiety symptoms [3]. Beyond their direct impact, mood disorders make a significant contribution to a range of poor health outcomes [4, 5]. The demographic information included the participants’ age, gender, living area (urban or not), and educational level. Four regression models were constructed to examine the factors that explain fear of COVID-19 and abiding by preventive COVID-19 infection behaviors. The first regression model used fear of COVID-19 as the dependent variable; demographics (age, gender, education, and living area), clinical characteristics (having a diabetes mellitus, hypertension, heart disease, renal disease, and cancer), and group (Iranian or Taiwanese older people) as independent variables. All the statistical analyses were performed using the IBM SPSS 24.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY)
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