Abstract
ObjectiveAt the end of 2019, the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan was a serious threat to public health. This study aimed to evaluate the risk perception of COVID-19 among college students in China during the quarantine, explore its related factors, and provide reference for future study.MethodsThis study invited college students from various provinces of China to participate in the survey through the Internet, and a total of 1,461 college students were included. T-test and analysis of variance were used to explore the relationship between demographic characteristics, social pressure, knowledge and risk perception. Multiple linear regression was used to identify factors associated with risk perception.ResultsThis study shows that college students in China have high risk perception of COVID-19. Female college students (p<0.01), non-medical students (p<0.01), college students whose schools are located in Hubei (p = 0.01) and college students with higher knowledge level (p<0.01) have higher risk perception.ConclusionDue to the strong infectivity and occult nature of COVID-19, it is necessary to improve the risk perception of college students through health education in various ways, and attention should be paid to some college students with low risk perception.
Highlights
Since the end of 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was identified and broke out in Wuhan
This study shows that college students in China have high risk perception of COVID-19
Female college students (p
Summary
Since the end of 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was identified and broke out in Wuhan. The true risk from COVID-19 virus might be low, but this epidemic has received broad media attention and been subjected to social media discussion, which may have induced the perception of risk among people, which in turn might determine their behaviors [4, 5]. Understanding their risk perception could be an effective method to communicate the health policy. The risk perception for emerging infectious diseases such as SARS and avian influenza were amongst the highest rated in the present study, especially in case of an outbreak. Risk perception has been well studied in some areas, such as environmental risk [14, 15], there is no study on college students’ risk perception of COVID-19 in China
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