Abstract
BackgroundHow people perceive the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and understand their risk can influence their health, behaviours and overall livelihood. The disease’s novelty and severity have elicited a range of attitudes and perspectives countrywide, which consequently influence the public’s adherence to public health prevention and treatment guidelines.AimTo investigate perceptions, experiences and knowledge on COVID-19 in a community-based cohort study.SettingAdults living in Soweto in South Africa’s Gauteng province during the first six weeks of the national lockdown regulations (i.e. Alert Level 5 lockdown from end of March to beginning of May 2020).MethodsParticipants completed a series of surveys and answered open-ended questions through telephonic interviews (n = 391). We queried their perceptions of the origins of COVID-19, understandings of the disease, personal and communal risks and its relations with the existing disease burden.ResultsFindings from our sample of 391 adults show that perceptions and knowledge of COVID-19 vary across several demographic characteristics. We report moderate levels of understanding about COVID-19, prevention methods and risk, as well as exposure to major physical, psychosocial and financial stressors. Depressive symptoms, perceived infection risk and concern about COVID-19 significantly predicted COVID-19 prevention knowledge.ConclusionPublic health communication campaigns should focus on continuing to improve knowledge and reduce misinformation associated with the virus. Policymakers should consider the mental health- and non-health-related impact of the pandemic on their citizens in order to curb the pandemic in a manner that maximises well-being.
Highlights
IntroductionHow individuals perceive and experience the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and understand their risk of infection can have major impacts on their health behaviours, risk of current and future diseases and overall livelihood.[1,2,3] The novelty and severity of the disease have generated a diverse array of perceptions and experiences countrywide, which may influence the public’s adherence to public health guidelines on prevention and treatment.[4,5,6] The relationship between perceptions and preventative behaviour is in accordance with the established models of behaviour change,[7] which indicate that an individual’s perceived susceptibility and severity of a health issue are key components that shape the attitudes towards diseases and behavioural modification.[8,9] The associations between individual perceptions and health behaviours are further supported by the existing research on HIV in South Africa and elsewhere and the associations between exposure to information about HIV and sexual risk behaviours.[10,11,12]Growing evidence of COVID-19 perceptions and experience in South Africa suggests elevated levels of pandemic-related social adversity and the risk of infection during the pandemic and subsequent lockdown regulation.http://www.sajpsychiatry.org Open AccessFrom 26 March 2020 until 30 April 2020, the South African government imposed a strict ‘national lockdown’ policy (Alert Level 5) to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 spread, which barred individuals from leaving a strict quarantine except for food, medicine and essential labour
Recent crosssectional analyses of national public perceptions on the COVID-19 pandemic conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council suggest that a majority of survey respondents adhered to regulations, about one in five perceived their risk of infection to be high and an alarming portion of individuals experienced financial hardship and food insecurity, amongst those living in informal settlements.[6]
This study investigated the perceptions, experiences and knowledge of COVID-19 in a community-based cohort study of adults living in Soweto located in the Gauteng province during the first 6 weeks of the country’s nationwide lockdown policy
Summary
How individuals perceive and experience the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and understand their risk of infection can have major impacts on their health behaviours, risk of current and future diseases and overall livelihood.[1,2,3] The novelty and severity of the disease have generated a diverse array of perceptions and experiences countrywide, which may influence the public’s adherence to public health guidelines on prevention and treatment.[4,5,6] The relationship between perceptions and preventative behaviour is in accordance with the established models of behaviour change,[7] which indicate that an individual’s perceived susceptibility and severity of a health issue are key components that shape the attitudes towards diseases and behavioural modification.[8,9] The associations between individual perceptions and health behaviours are further supported by the existing research on HIV in South Africa and elsewhere and the associations between exposure to information about HIV and sexual risk behaviours.[10,11,12]Growing evidence of COVID-19 perceptions and experience in South Africa suggests elevated levels of pandemic-related social adversity and the risk of infection during the pandemic and subsequent lockdown regulation.http://www.sajpsychiatry.org Open AccessFrom 26 March 2020 until 30 April 2020, the South African government imposed a strict ‘national lockdown’ policy (Alert Level 5) to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 spread, which barred individuals from leaving a strict quarantine except for food, medicine and essential labour. Recent crosssectional analyses of national public perceptions on the COVID-19 pandemic conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council suggest that a majority of survey respondents adhered to regulations, about one in five perceived their risk of infection to be high and an alarming portion of individuals experienced financial hardship and food insecurity, amongst those living in informal settlements.[6] Data from the recent National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey illustrate a significant positive association between perceived risk and engagement in the preventative behaviour for COVID-19 amongst their sample of 7074 South African adults.[13] We extend these national-level study to provide deeper understandings of the lived experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in a concentrated sample of adults living in Soweto to inform the development and implementation of ongoing public health campaigns aimed at reducing the burden of the growing COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa and across the world. The disease’s novelty and severity have elicited a range of attitudes and perspectives countrywide, which influence the public’s adherence to public health prevention and treatment guidelines
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