Abstract
This study aimed to determine the proportion of individuals who reported the deterioration of physical and psychological health during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Taiwan. Moreover, the related factors of deterioration of physical and psychological health and the association between deterioration of health and adoption of protective behavior against COVID-19 and mental health problems were also examined. We recruited participants via a Facebook advertisement. We determined the subjective physical and psychological health states, cognitive and affective construct of health belief, perceived social support, mental health problems, adoption of protective behavior and demographic characteristics among 1954 respondents (1305 women and 649 men; mean age: 37.9 years with standard deviation 10.8 years). In total, 13.2% and 19.3% of respondents reported deteriorated physical and psychological health during the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. Participants with higher perceived harm from COVID-19 compared with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) were more likely to report the subjective deterioration of physical and psychological health, whereas respondents who were older and perceived a higher level of social support were less likely to report a deterioration of physical and psychological health. The subjective deterioration of psychological health was significantly associated with avoiding crowded places and wearing a mask. Both subjective deteriorations of physical and psychological health positively related to general anxiety.
Highlights
Demographic characteristics, cognitive and affective constructs of health beliefs related to COVID-19, and perceived social support were compared between respondents who did or did not exhibit a subjective deterioration in physical and psychological health during the COVID-19 pandemic using univariate logistic regression with the crude odds ratio
The results demonstrate that the interaction between age and sufficiency of knowledge and information about COVID-19 was significantly associated with the deterioration of physical health (B = −1.316, adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 0.268, 95% confidence intervals (CIs): 0.079–0.912, p = 0.035), indicating that age moderated the association between the deterioration of physical health and sufficiency of knowledge and information about COVID-19
The results indicate that after controlling for the effects of demographic characteristics, the subjective deterioration of psychological health was associated with more adoption of two protective behaviors, including avoiding crowded places (B = 0.411, aOR = 1.508, 95% CI: 1.088–2.092, p = 0.014)
Summary
The current investigation was based on the dataset of the Survey of Health Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan, which was comprehensively described elsewhere [34]. A Facebook advertisement was deployed between 10 April 2020 and 23 April 2020. We targeted the advertisement to Facebook users by location (Taiwan) and language (Chinese), where Facebook’s. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, x FOR PEER REVIEW
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