Precautionary Behavior Research Articles

Community engagement and compliance monitoring of COVID-19 safety protocols: innovative approach combining indigenous practice and GIS technology in Oyo State, Nigeria

Background: One of the major challenges that has driven the spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide is the burden of enforcing the preventive measures required to contain the pandemic. Enforcement of COVID-19 precautionary behaviour should not be homogenous; every country needs to be creative to ensure that humane considerations guide all decisions during the extraordinary experience that COVID-19 pandemic portends. The model of self-policing is acceptable and maintained principally because the citizens of any communities operate, recognize, and accept them as preferred alternatives to the official models of policing for enforcement. Hence the approach presented in this paper, which deployed existing indigenous alternative systems in ensuring compliance with COVID-19 precautionary behaviour. This article therefore documents the unique approach deployed for the containment of COVID-19 in Oyo State, Nigeria. Objective: This intervention was designed to explore established indigenous alternative systems and models of control, justice, law, security, and enforcement in Nigeria. Additionally, geographic information system (GIS) technology and investigative journalism was used to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Method: The method employed was community conversation; a method of increasing inclusive, community-based engagement harnessing the expertise and motivation of key stakeholders. The community conversations were convened after the pattern of a traditional Town-hall meeting. Community conversations were organized as a qualitative framework focusing on deploying the indigenous practice of self-policing associated with Nigerias trade unions and aims to inform COVID-19 preventive behaviour at the community level. Geographical information system technology was used to develop COVID-19 Containment Compliance Citizens Reporter App. The App was developed using ESRI ArcGIS online platform to crowd source public feedback on compliance or contravention of COVID-19 protocols. Social media platforms were also deployed for monitoring and evaluation of the intervention post townhall meeting. Results: The establishment of a State-wide Containment response network provided the required inroad for advocacy and deployment of state-wide community conversation framework in the different communities comprising diverse ethnic groups, religious leaders, market leaders, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), and so on. Testimonials from the various communities showed that the people have embraced the self-policing strategy and the network system was effective with good outcomes in terms of response to decontamination, containment, and advocacy. The COVID-19 Containment Compliance Citizens Reporter App, investigative reporting by mass media were highly effective tools for monitoring and evaluation of the outcome of the intervention as well as possible evidence for melting out incentive and disincentive measures as necessary. This approach is a template, which could be adapted and replicated in other parts of Nigeria and other African societies with similar structures, demographics, and indigenous practices.

The current global perspective of the knowledge-attitude-behavior of the general public towards the corona virus disease -19 pandemic: Systematic review and meta-analysis on 67,143 participants.

Determining the success of infectious disease outbreak prevention is dependent mainly on public knowledge and compliance regarding the guidelines of precautionary behaviors and practices. While the current literature about the COVID-19 pandemic extensively addresses clinical and laboratory-based studies, a gap remains still present in terms of evaluating the general public knowledge and behaviors towards the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this review was to form a preliminary and contemporary understanding of the general public knowledge, attitude, and behaviors towards the COVID-19 pandemic globally. A systematic search was conducted in various databases until May 2020. Each study's characteristics including the sample size, region, and study type were examined individually. A meta-analysis with a random-effects model and pooled prevalence with 95% confidence interval (CI) of all evaluated outcomes such as adequate knowledge, positive feelings, worrisome about the COVID-19 pandemic, and practice were recorded and reported from each study. Parameters such as random distribution, blinding, incomplete outcome data, selective reporting, and other biases were utilized to assess the quality of each retrieved record. Both Begg's and Egger's tests were employed to evaluate symmetry of funnel plots for assessment of publication bias. The overall quality of evidence was evaluated using GRADEpro software. A total of 26 studies with 67,143 participants were analyzed. The overall prevalence of knowledge, positive attitude, worrisome, and practice of precautionary measures were 0.87 (95%CI, 0.84-0.89), 0.85 (95%CI, 0.77-0.92), 0.71 (95%CI, 0.61-0.81), and 0.77 (95%CI, 0.70-0.83), respectively. Subgroup analysis demonstrated that social distancing was less practiced in Africa than other regions (p = 0.02), while knowledge of prevention of COVID-19 was reported higher in Asia (p = 0.001). Furthermore, people in developing countries had a higher prevalence of worrisome towards the COVID-19 pandemic with a p-value of less than 0.001. The quality of evidence was noted to be of low certainty in practice domain but moderate in the remaining outcomes. Assessing the public's risk perception and precautionary behaviors is essential in directing future policy and health population research regarding infection control and preventing new airborne disease outbreaks.

COVID-19 Related Media Consumption and Mental Health in Older Adults

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, consuming media was critical to identify precautionary behaviors to reduce the spread of the virus, particularly for older adults. Media consumption leads to heightened awareness, but may also negatively affect mental health. We examined whether non-social and social media consumption impacted anxiety and depression relative to pre-COVID-19 symptoms. We conducted an anonymous, cross-sectional survey in May and June 2020. Participants (n=1,168, 73.2 years, 56.8% women, 94.9% White), were asked to estimate their amount of time spent consuming pandemic-related media each day, and to report on anxiety and depressive symptoms both before and after the pandemic onset. We characterized change in anxiety and depression by subtracting scores on current anxiety and depressive symptoms from their recalled symptoms prior to the pandemic. Respondents with high pandemic-related media consumption (>3hrs) were more likely to have increased anxiety, compared to those with low (<1hr) media consumption (OR:1.57, 95%CI:1.09-2.23). Similarly, respondents with increased social media consumption during the pandemic were 64% more likely to have depression, compared to those who did not use social media. This association was bi-directional— those who reduced their social media use were 45% less likely to have depression and 26% less likely to have anxiety, compared to those who never used social media. Older adults consuming more pandemic-related media had increased anxiety. Increased social media consumption was associated with elevated depression symptoms. The potential benefits of media consumption about the COVID-19 pandemic may have unintended negative consequences on mental health.

Households, auctioneers, and aggregation

We examine aggregation in the neoclassical growth model with aggregate shocks and uninsurable employment risk, as well as related environments. We introduce a Walrasian auctioneer whose job is to report to households all possible state-contingent future prices. Households take these as given when forming expectations and making optimal consumption/savings decisions, and the auctioneer adjusts her forecasts until markets clear. This natural dichotomy between the households and the auctioneer allows us to study each problem in isolation as well as to discuss the intersection. On the household side, we separate an explicit expression for the linear permanent income component of savings from a well-behaved nonlinear adjustment arising from precautionary behavior and incomplete markets. Equipped with this decomposition, we then study how economies aggregate in the presence of various auctioneer types that are popular in the literature. The steady-state auctioneer of Huggett (1997) and Aiyagari (1994) offers a paper-and-pencil analysis of aggregation that provides a bound on more complex environments. We provide an economic interpretation of the regression coefficients and explain the lack of time variation in the auctioneer of Krusell and Smith (1998). We also introduce a new numerical method which uses the empirical distribution of auctioneer forecasts to substantially improve solution accuracy in cases where the standard coefficient of determination and other well-known statistics prove to be misleading.

Gender-specific psychological and social impact of COVID-19 in Pakistan.

COVID-19 has rapidly spread across the world. Women may be especially vulnerable to depression and anxiety as a result of the pandemic. This study attempted to assess how gender affects risk perceptions, anxiety levels and behavioural responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan, to recommend gender-responsive health policies. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted. Participants were asked to complete a sociodemographic data form, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and questions on their risk perceptions, preventive behaviour and information exposure. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to assess the effects of factors such as age, gender and household income on anxiety levels. Of the 1391 respondents, 478 were women and 913 were men. Women considered their chances of survival to be relatively lower than men (59% v. 73%). They were also more anxious (62% v. 50%) and more likely to adopt precautionary behaviour, such as avoiding going to the hospital (78% v. 71%), not going to work (72% v. 57%) and using disinfectants (93% v. 86%). Men were more likely to trust friends, family and social media as reliable sources of COVID-19 information, whereas women were more likely to trust doctors. Women experience a disproportionate burden of the psychological and social impact of the pandemic compared with men. Involving doctors in healthcare communication targeting women might prove effective. Social media and radio programmes may be effective in disseminating COVID-19-related information to men.

Can self-protective behaviors increase unrealistic optimism? Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic.

People tend to believe they are more (less) likely to experience positive (negative) outcomes than similar others. While research has consistently shown that feeling unrealistically optimistic about future events influences the adoption of self-protective behaviors, much less is known about the opposite relationship. We address this gap by examining whether and how self-protective behaviors influence unrealistic optimism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Across two preregistered, high-powered experiments (N = 4,707), we document a generalized unrealistic optimism about the health risks associated with COVID-19. Critically, we show that prompting people to think about a precautionary behavior they often perform (i.e., mask wearing) magnifies this preexisting tendency. Egocentrism, but not self-enhancement and/or better-than-average effects, helps to explain the phenomenon. Theoretical contributions and substantive implications to health risk research and policy are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Community psychological and behavioural responses to coronavirus disease 2019 over one year of the pandemic in 2020 in Hong Kong

Monitoring community psychological and behavioural responses to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is important for informing policy making and risk communication to sustain public compliance with challenging precautionary behaviours and mitigating the psychological impacts. Monthly telephone-based cross-sectional surveys in January–April 2020 and then weekly surveys from May through December 2020 were conducted to monitor changes in public risk perception of COVID-19, personal efficacy in self-protection, confidence in government’s ability to control the pandemic, precautionary behaviours, perceived impact of precautionary behaviours, psychological fatigue and distress in Hong Kong, and examine their inter-relationships. While worry about contracting COVID-19 increased, personal efficacy and confidence in government declined as the community incidence of COVID-19 increased. The public maintained high compliance with most precautionary behaviours throughout but relaxed behaviours that were more challenging when disease incidence declined. Public confidence in government was persistently low throughout, of which, a lower level was associated with more psychological fatigue, lower compliance with precautionary behaviours and greater psychological distress. Perceived greater negative impact of precautionary behaviours was also associated with more psychological fatigue which in turn was associated with relaxation of precautionary behaviours. Female, younger and unemployed individuals reported greater psychological distress throughout different stages of the pandemic. Risk communication should focus on promoting confidence in self-protection and pandemic control to avoid helplessness to act when the pandemic resurges. Policy making should prioritize building public trust, enhancing support for sustaining precautionary behaviours, and helping vulnerable groups to adapt to the stress during the pandemic.

How Can I Get COVID?: Understanding Differences in American Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Men's Risk Perception.

Men are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infections compared to women, but their risk perceptions around COVID-19 are persistently lower. Further, men often engage in less health promotion behavior because self-care in this capacity is seen as weak or less masculine. This combination has consequences for mortality; thus, a better understanding of men’s COVID-19 cognitions and individual difference factors is critical. In a web-based survey conducted during the beginning stages of the pandemic in the U.S., we collected risk perceptions of various sexual and non-sexual behaviors from heterosexual (n = 137) and gay/bisexual men (n = 108). There were no significant sexual orientation differences for perceptions of COVID-19 risk from routine activities or in overall risk estimates. However, gay/bisexual men did report engaging in more precautionary behavior while socializing (i.e., masking, social distancing) and reported higher risk perceptions than did heterosexual men for nearly all intimate and sexual activities. A more nuanced understanding of cognitions around COVID-19 is needed to better understand motivation for—and especially motivation against—pursuing vaccinations and continuing precautionary behavior.

The role of COVID-19 fears and related behaviors in understanding daily adolescent health behaviors during the pandemic.

We examined the prospective associations of COVID-19 fears and behavior, and daily physical activity and dysregulated eating. Adolescents (N = 31) aged 11-17 completed selected subscales of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation and completed a 7-day health behavior diary. Greater fear of contamination was associated with lower daily physical activity. In contrast, greater COVID-19 precautionary behavior was associated with greater daily physical activity. COVID-19 fears and precautionary behaviors have differential associations with health promoting behavior engagement. Future studies should explore the mechanisms underlying these links to guide adaptation of health behavior interventions for this unique cohort.

First snapshot on behavioral characteristics and related factors of patients with chronic kidney disease in South Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic (June to October 2020).

BackgroundThe recent novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to unprecedented changes in behavior. We evaluated the current status of precautionary behavior and physical activity in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsA population of CKD patients (n = 306) registered in the Study on Kidney Disease and Environmental Chemicals (SKETCH, Clinical Trial No. NCT04679168) cohort recruited from June 2020 to October 2020 was included in the study. We conducted a questionnaire survey related to risk perception of COVID-19, precautionary behavior, and physical activity.ResultsThere were 187 patients (61.1%) with estimated glomerular filtration rate of <45 mL/min/1.73 m2. This population showed a higher degree of risk perception for COVID-19 than the general population. Age was the most significant determinant of risk perception among CKD patients. During the pandemic, social distancing and hygiene-related behavior were significantly increased (p < 0.001). The frequency of exercise was decreased only in those who took regular exercise, without diabetes, or with a lower Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) (p < 0.001), with no change among the other groups. Socioeconomic status and comorbidities significantly affected behavioral characteristics regardless of the category. Education and income were significantly associated with precautionary behaviors such as staying at home and hand sanitizer use. Patients with higher CCI status significantly increased frequency of exercise (adjusted odds ratio, 2.10; 95% confidence interval, 1.01–4.38).ConclusionCKD patients showed higher risk perception with active precautionary behavioral changes than the general population. Healthcare providers should be aware of the characteristics to comprise precautionary behavior without reducing physical activity.

Lack of affective priming indicates attitude-behaviour discrepancy for COVID-19 affiliated words

The ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in the enforcement of national public health safety measures including precautionary behaviours such as border closures, movement restrictions, total or partial lockdowns, social distancing, and face mask mandates in order to reduce the spread of this disease. The current study uses affective priming, an indirect behavioural measure of implicit attitude, to evaluate COVID-19 attitudes. Explicitly, participants rated their overall risk perception associated with contracting COVID-19 significantly lower compared to their perception of necessary precautions and overall adherence to public health measures. During baseline trials, participants explicitly rated COVID-19 affiliated words as unpleasant, similar to traditional unpleasant word stimuli. Despite rating the COVID-19 affiliated words as unpleasant, affective priming was not observed for congruent prime-target COVID-19 affiliated word pairs when compared to congruent prime-target pleasant and unpleasant words. Overall, these results provide quantitative evidence that COVID-19 affiliated words do not invoke the same implicit attitude response as traditional pleasant and unpleasant word stimuli, despite conscious explicit rating of the COVID-19 words as unpleasant. This reduction in unpleasant attitude towards COVID-19 related words may contribute towards decreased fear-related behaviours and increased incidences of risky-behaviour facilitating the movement of the virus.

Pandemic, risk-adaptation and household saving: evidence from China

PurposeScholars have not agreed with each other on how people would behave after experiencing a catastrophic event. They could save more as a precautionary action for future difficulties or save less with a carpe diem attitude. This study aims to attempt to shed light on this debate with empirical observations on how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected household saving decisions.Design/methodology/approachThe two waves of the survey data allowed us to investigate both instantaneous and ongoing effects of Covid-19 on household saving decisions. The instantaneous effect refers to the immediate impact of the crisis, while the ongoing effect refers to the lasting impact of the pandemic when economic recovery had started. The variation in the number of confirmed cases across cities during the two waves provides the source of power for identification. The authors extend their analyses of the impact of Covid-19 on the household saving decision by using ordinary least squares models. Due to the ordered nature of survey responses, the authors also rerun all baseline models using the ordered probit regression method.FindingsThis paper studied the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on household saving decisions in China. This study found that households in the most affected cities would save more during the Covid-19 but tend to save less when the disaster started fading away. Combining findings in Kun et al. (2013) and Filipski et al. (2015), people do become more pessimistic during and after the Covid-19, possibly driving their observed precautionary and cape diem behaviors during the two points of time. Heterogeneity analysis shows that specific households would dramatically change their saving behavior. These observations might be useful for policymakers who concern the economic recovery after this pandemic disaster.Originality/valueUnderstanding how the Covid-19 pandemic would affect household consumption vs saving decisions is important for the economic recovery after this disaster comes to an end. The analyses presented in this research could be useful for policymakers who concern appropriate policies aiming to boost consumption and economic activities after Covid.

Does precise case disclosure limit precautionary behavior? Evidence from COVID-19 in Singapore

Limiting the spread of contagious diseases can involve both government-managed and voluntary efforts. Governments have a number of policy options beyond direct intervention that can shape individuals’ responses to a pandemic and its associated costs. During its first wave of COVID-19 cases, Singapore was among a few countries that attempted to adjust behavior through the announcement of detailed case information. Singapore’s Ministry of Health maintained and shared precise, daily information detailing local travel behavior and residences of COVID-19 cases. We use this policy along with device-level cellphone data to quantify how local and national COVID-19 case announcements trigger differential behavioral changes. We find evidence that individuals are three times more responsive to outbreaks in granularly defined locales. Conditional on keeping infection rates at a manageable level, the results suggest economic value in this type of transparency by mitigating the scope of precautionary activity reductions.

Cooperation of ordinary citizens with urban management in the third wave of Covid-19 outbreak in Iran

In response to the Covid-19 outbreak, nations worldwide imposed various restrictions on their citizens in an attempt to stem its spread. One underlying aspect of the success of these policies is people's adaptation to epidemics and their continuous cooperation with urban management to adhere to precautionary measures. Otherwise, the disease incidence and death rates in the countries will not decrease. The situation that has occurred in Iran since the beginning of September and a sudden rise has put this country at the top of the daily reported deaths of Covid-19 (in proportion to the population) in October and November. Thus, this study will focus on two important Iranian metropolises (Tehran and Karaj) to understand: 1) What is the level of citizens’ cooperation in complying with Covid-19-related precautionary measures? 2) How has the level of citizens' precautionary behaviors changed compared to the early days of the outbreak? 3) Is there a correlative relationship between citizens' personal and socioeconomic characteristics and their level of cooperation in this period? This cross-sectional study is based on online surveys (completion of 667 online questionnaires by ordinary citizens living in Tehran and Karaj). Findings show the participation of 30.3% in implementing all precautionary measures, with women, high-income groups, unemployed people, and those without a history of Covid-19 infection having a higher odds ratio than others. In terms of citizens' behavior, 21% have reduced their level of cooperation in this area, which is correlated with their personal and socioeconomic characteristics (except their city of residence).

Promoting precautionary behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: Development and validation of a behavior-change messaging campaign

BackgroundDesigning a health promotion campaign is never an easy task, especially during a pandemic of a highly infectious disease such as COVID-19. In Saudi Arabia, many attempts have been made to raise public awareness about COVID-19 infection and precautionary health measures. However, most of the health information delivered through the national dashboard and the COVID-19 awareness campaigns are generic and do not necessarily make the impact needed to be seen on individuals’ behavior. Health messages need to be applicable and reverent to the individual in the audience. ObjectiveIn light of Fogg-Behavior model, this research aims to build and validate a behavior-change-based messaging campaign to promote precautionary health behavior in individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Intervention messages can then be targeted appropriately during the pandemic. MethodsAn initial library of 32 text-based and video-based messages were developed and validated based on Fogg behavior model for behavior change. Based on this model, three groups of messages were created to reflect the model’s three theoretical concepts of motivation, ability and triggers. Each group of messages is designed to target different segment of the audience. The content of the messages was developed based on resources from the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia. The validity of this content was evaluated by domain experts through the content validity index. ResultsFogg-Behavior Model was used to segment the audience into three different groups based on their perceived ability and motivation. The three groups of messages designed for those groups were found relevant to Fogg theoretical concepts. Thirteen professional health care workers (n = 13) evaluated the content of the message libraries in Arabic and English. Thirty-two messages were found to have acceptable content validity (I-CVI = 0.87). ConclusionsThis research introduced Fogg Behavior Model as a behavior change model to develop targeted messages for three groups of the audience based on their motivation and ability level toward maintaining precautionary behavior during the pandemic. This targeted awareness messaging campaign can be utilized by health authorities to raise individuals’ awareness about the precautionary measures that should be taken, maintain these measures and hence help in reducing the number of positive cases in the city of Jeddah.

Adoption of online retail banking practices as a precautionary protective behavior during the Covid-19 Pandemic

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Increase in online banking activities has been observed in the new normal of the Covid-19 pandemic. Previous studies argued that fraudsters tend to prey on unexpected events. This threat is also frightening online consumers of retail banking. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate how online retail banking users can be motivated enough to avoid online banking fraud threats while no compromise on health. METHODS: The population of the study is online banking customers in Pakistan. This study obtained data from 470 respondents who used online banking services by using questionnaires through an online survey. The structure Equation Modeling approach is used to investigate the relationship among study research variables. FINDINGS: Findings from a nationwide online survey confirmed the impact of the pandemic on consumer responses for online retail banking intention. Structure Equation Model results found that Perceived Vulnerability β = 0.24, Perceived Severity β = 0.31, and Response Efficacy β = 0.32 has significant impact on precautionary behavior. Surprisingly, Self-Efficacy was not significant to consumer precautionary behavior during the new normal of COVID-19.CONCLUSION: This study contributes to the literature on online banking and protection motivation theory. Results imply that bankers must invest in online banking and provide a secure environment that prioritizes the safety of the online transaction and create awareness to decrease the threat of fraud during the uncertain situation. The findings of this study particularly call for bankers, retailers’ attention to online management of security systems.

Flexible work arrangements and precautionary behavior: Theory and experimental evidence

In the past years, work-time in many industries has become more flexible, opening up a new channel for intertemporal substitution: workers might, instead of saving, adjust their work-time to smooth consumption. To study this channel, we set up a two-period consumption/saving model with wage uncertainty. This extends the standard saving model by also allowing a worker to allocate a fixed time budget between two work-shifts. To test the comparative statics implied by these two different channels, we conduct a laboratory experiment. A novel feature of our experiments is that we tie income to a real-effort style task. In four treatments, we turn on and off the two channels for consumption smoothing: saving and time allocation. Our main finding is that savings are strictly positive for at least 85 percent of subjects. We find that a majority of subjects also uses time allocation to smooth consumption and use saving and time shifting as substitutes, though not perfect substitutes. Part of the observed heterogeneity of precautionary behavior can be explained by risk preferences and motivations different from expected utility maximization.

Women Tend to Perceive Greater Risks Associated With the COVID-19 Outbreak and Are More Likely to Follow Precautionary Measures

Abstract. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic may have a different impact on men and women. Aim: This study aimed to investigate gender differences in risk perception, attitudes toward quarantine measures, and adoption of precautionary behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: We employed a cross-sectional web-based survey design. The sample included 1,569 people living in Italy. The survey was conducted during the national lockdown in April 2020 when the Italian government extended the quarantine measures to the whole country. Results: Results showed that women reported higher scores on perceived severity, worry, precautionary behaviors, and attitudes toward quarantine restrictions. Gender differences in the perceived likelihood of infection with SARS-CoV-2 were not significant. Using mediation analysis, we found that the relationship between gender and precautionary behaviors was explained by attitudes toward quarantine restrictions, perceived severity, and worry. Limitations: The use of a cross-sectional design precludes causal inference. Conclusion: Our results point to the need to develop and implement interventions that address (1) the higher levels of risk perception of the COVID-19 outbreak among women and (2) the lower scores on risk perception, attitudes toward quarantine restrictions, and adoption of precautionary behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic among men.

Big Five personality traits and COVID-19 precautionary behaviors among older adults in Europe

ObjectivesTaking precautions against COVID-19 is important among older adults who have a greater risk for severe illness if infected. We examined whether Big Five personality traits are associated with COVID-19 precautionary behaviors among older adults in Europe. MethodWe used data from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (N = 34 629). Personality was self-reported in 2017 using the BFI-10 inventory. COVID-19 precautionary behaviors – wearing a mask, limiting in-person contacts, keeping a distance to others, washing hands, and using a disinfectant – were assessed in the summer of 2020 through self-reports. Associations between personality and precautionary behaviors were examined with multilevel random-intercept logistic regression models. The models were adjusted for age, gender, and educational attainment. ResultsPersonality traits were differentially associated with precautionary behaviors, with higher openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism showing the most consistent associations. The pattern of associations between personality traits and precautionary behaviors varied depending on the specific behavior. The associations were relatively weak in comparison to those between sociodemographic factors and precautionary behaviors. ConclusionsAmong older adults, taking COVID-19 precautionary behaviors was most consistently related to higher openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, suggesting that precautionary behaviors may be motivated by multiple psychological differences.

University community-based survey on the knowledge, attitude and perception about COVID-19 pandemic: the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria as a case study.

SummaryIntroductionCoronavirus disease (COVID-19) is impacting social, economic and political patterns globally. To contain its spread, Nigeria like many other countries, imposed drastic measures such as lockdown/curfew.ObjectivesThis study assessed the knowledge, attitude and perception (KAP) about COVID-19 pandemic among members of staff of a university community in Nigeria. University staff members contribute to national development through dissemination of specialized knowledge and skills and guiding the young generation.MethodsA cross-sectional survey using an anonymous, self-designed, online KAP questionnaire was conducted from April 18 to May 31, 2020. The questionnaire consisted of ten knowledge questions regarding the transmission and prevention of COVID-19. The questions on attitude (15) and perception (10) assessed respondents’ behaviour towards adherence to government policies and views on government efforts to contain the infection respectively.ResultsA total of 125 (teaching) and 102 (non-teaching) staff responded. Approximately 59.1% of the respondents were males. The mean knowledge and positive attitude levels were 70.8% (SD ± 9.6%) and 83.1% (SD ± 13.07 %) respectively. Significant differences in the knowledge mean scores were observed for demographic categories such as educational qualification (p = 0.001), staff work category (p ≤ 0.000), work background (p ≤ 0.000), and type of lockdown (p = 0.027). Most of the respondents (85.3%) opined that COVID-19 was a biological weapon and viewed the lockdown as necessary (81.5%). However, they thought that the Nigerian government was not doing enough to mitigate COVID-19 spread.ConclusionsThe perception of COVID-19 in the university community bear implications across public health initiatives, compliance with precautionary behaviour and bilateral relations with foreign nations.