Perceived social norm and behavior quickly adjusted to legal changes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Casoria F
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8411850 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:While pandemic containment measures benefit public health, they may jeopardize the social structure of society. We hypothesize that lockdowns and prolonged social distancing measures hinder social support and invite norm violations, eroding social trust. We conducted a pre-registered pre-post study on a representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 2377; participation rate = 88.8%), measuring social trust reported by the same individuals before and after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that social trust in the Netherlands suddenly dropped from its historically stable level, reaching one of its lowest points on record. The decline was stronger among residents belonging to official high-risk categories, especially if they perceived themselves as likely to become infected. Individuals who more strongly agreed with self-isolation norms or did not perceive a widespread compliance or agreement with such norms also reported a greater loss of trust.
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Project description:Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious and potentially fatal infectious disease that has swept the globe. To reduce the spread, it is important to engage in preventive behaviors recommended by health authorities, such as washing your hands, wearing a face mask, and social distancing. Aim: In the present study, we draw from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine the associations between perceived behavioral control, attitudes, and subjective norm and whether people engage in eight different preventive behaviors. Methods: For each of the preventive behaviors (washing hands; using hand sanitizer; not touching your face; social distancing; wearing a face mask; disinfecting surfaces; coughing in your elbow; staying home if sick), we conducted separate logistic regressions predicting whether the participants (N = 2,256; age range = 1898 years) reported engaging in the behavior from their perceived behavioral control, attitudes, and subjective norm. Results: We found that perceived behavioral control, attitudes, and subjective norm had independent significant associations with each preventive behavior. Moderation analyses revealed that for most behaviors the associations with perceived behavioral control were stronger for older adults than for younger adults. Limitation: The present study was cross-sectional; future longitudinal studies and interventions are needed to disentangle directionality. Conclusion: Our findings suggest several ways to increase adherence to health behaviors that reduce the spread of coronavirus and other infectious diseases.
| S-EPMC8139398 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Social distancing through the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted sexuality and relationships, which may also change risk perceptions beyond traditional definitions (e.g. sexually transmitted infections). This study examines risk perceptions related to sexuality during the pandemic. We present qualitative analyses of a survey of adults in the United States (N = 333) to identify impacts of COVID-19 on individuals' risk perceptions. Risky sexual behavior definitions included: (1) COVID-19-related, (2) STI/pregnancy, (3) relationship-related, (4) physical boundaries, (5) drug or alcohol, and (6) multiple risks. Conventional public health messaging may need to incorporate changing risk definitions to address sexual health during the pandemic.
| S-EPMC8685755 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Rationale: Tobacco use is a risk factor for COVID-19 adverse outcomes. Despite health implications, data conflict regarding COVID-19 and tobacco consumption. We present results from a survey of health behaviors during the pandemic to identify how COVID-19 influenced tobacco use. Methods: A national internet-based survey was deployed between May-September 2020. We analyzed participants who reported current or former smoking. We tabulated change in tobacco use, whether changes related to COVID-19, and measures of anxiety, depression, and novel perceived COVID-19 threat scale. We employed multinomial logistic regression to determine associations between these items and tobacco consumption. Results: We identified 500 respondents who reported ever smoking previously, 150 of which were currently smoking. Of 220 participants who reported any use of vapes, 110 were currently vaping. Increased perceived threat of COVID-19 was associated with both increased (aRR increase 1.75, 95% CI [1.07-2.86], P = 0.03) and decreased (aRR decrease 1.72 [1.04-2.85], P = 0.03) tobacco consumption relative to no change. There were no significant relationships found between perceived threat of COVID-19 and vaping behavior. Conclusions: As perceived COVID-19 threat increased, people were more likely to increase or decrease their smoking than stay the same, even after controlling for anxiety and depression, both of which can affect smoking in either direction. Further study into motivators of increasing or decreasing affected tobacco consumption, and how barriers to care from safer-at-home policies and changes in care delivery moderate change in tobacco use will aid planning tobacco reduction interventions during the ongoing and future respiratory viral pandemics.
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Project description:Background: Social lives have significantly changed since social distancing measures have been implemented to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study aimed to investigate how our appraisal of social situations changed during the pandemic. Methods: In two online surveys, conducted in October 2019 and April 2020, 58 participants rated their personal level of comfort for sketches depicting social situations. Situations were separately categorized according to the risk of a possible COVID-19 infection and changes in ratings were analyzed by using a repeated measures ANOVA. Moreover, potential influencing factors on the change in ratings such as perceived infection risk and social factors like regular frequency and liking of social interactions were examined. Results: There was a significant interaction (p < 0.001) between time of measurement and risk category. Comfort ratings of depicted situations with low and medium infection risk were higher during the second compared to the first survey period. Ratings of high-risk situations did not change significantly, although there was a tendency toward lower ratings during the pandemic. Multiple regression analyses showed that perceived probability of short-term infection could explain variance in the change of ratings of social situations with low- and medium risk, but not perceived probability of long-term infection or social factors. Conclusion: The results suggest that the change of participant's appraisal of the social situations during the COVID-19 pandemic relates to perceived infection risk. Both, the risk associated with the specific scenario as well as the general belief of short-term infection risk were associated with change. This change predominantly manifested in greater thought of comfort during low and medium risk situations, which might give a sense of safety during the pandemic. The finding that high-risk social situations were not rated as uncomfortable as expected must be considered with regard to the young sample and may not be generalizable to other individuals. Further research is necessary to evaluate long-term effects on social interactions caused by global pandemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
| S-EPMC8415019 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns have posed unique and severe challenges to our global society. To gain an integrative understanding of pervasive social and mental health impacts in 3522 Berlin residents aged 18 to 65, we systematically investigated the structural and temporal relationship between a variety of psychological indicators of vulnerability, resilience and social cohesion before, during and after the first lockdown in Germany using a retrospective longitudinal study design. Factor analyses revealed that (a) vulnerability and resilience indicators converged on one general bipolar factor, (b) residual variance of resilience indicators formed a distinct factor of adaptive coping capacities and (c) social cohesion could be reliably measured with a hierarchical model including four first-order dimensions of trust, a sense of belonging, social interactions and social engagement, and one second-order social cohesion factor. In the second step, latent change score models revealed that overall psychological vulnerability increased during the first lockdown and decreased again during re-opening, although not to baseline levels. Levels of social cohesion, in contrast, first decreased and then increased again during re-opening. Furthermore, participants who increased in vulnerability simultaneously decreased in social cohesion and adaptive coping during lockdown. While higher pre-lockdown levels of social cohesion predicted a stronger lockdown effect on mental health, individuals with higher social cohesion during the lockdown and positive change in coping abilities and social cohesion during re-opening showed better mental health recovery, highlighting the important role of social capacities in both amplifying but also overcoming the multiple challenges of this collective crisis.
| S-EPMC8952288 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In Ethiopia, the WHO strategies to stop coronavirus transmission were implemented rapidly. As a result, there was a rapid change in hygiene behavior, which are basic for preventing COVID-19 and other contagious diseases. This research was designed to examine the sustainability of the COVID-19 imposed hygiene behaviors for future challenges. The study was conducted in 2 major nexus areas in Addis Ababa. The data were collected using a questionnaire and spot-check from 622 respondents selected by systematic random sampling. The questionnaire was given at every 15th interval in several spots of the site. Observational hygiene-check was done through observing key personal hygiene conditions. Proportion, χ2 test, and Poisson's regression were applied for the analysis. The χ2-test analyses showed that the hand washing frequency before, during, and post-COVID-19 was statistically significant (P < .005). Findings from the spot-check also show that the hands of 76.8%, the nails of 68.7%, and the hairs of 70.7% of the respondents were clean. The major driving factors for the rapid changes in hygiene behavior were the awareness developed (95%), the fear and panic (90%), and increased access to water and soap (63%). Nevertheless, the major reasons for failing to continue the COVID-19-imposed good hygiene practice in the post-COVID-19 times include the decline in infection and death rates (26%) and the decline in facility access (20%). Hand washing frequency significantly changed during the COVID-19 pandemic indicating that the practice as part of the preventive strategy was successful. However, as this was mainly due to the fear and panic in the community, the COVID-19 imposed hand washing practice did not bring real and sustainable behavioral changes. This indicates that for long-lasting changes in hygiene behavior, continuous and better approach need to be introduced.
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Project description:American veterans are a population that suffer from both context specific stressors as well as many population-specific major-life events. The present exploratory study utilises a longitudinal cohort of 1230 U.S. veterans surveyed from February 2020 through February 2021. We sought to understand heterogeneity in perceived stress, using growth mixture modelling, over this time period, how COVID-specific factors such as negative reactions to the pandemic, loneliness, and employment disruptions influence perceived stress trajectories, and how veterans vary across distal outcomes including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), pain, depression, sleep problems, physical health, and alcohol use disorder. Results revealed a 4-class solution: Stable High, Stable Low, Steady Increasing, and Steady Decreasing classes. In terms of COVID specific factors, negative reactions to COVID were consistently associated with perceived stress for those in the Stable High and Steady Increasing classes whereas loneliness was associated with stress trajectories for all emergent classes. Finally, in terms of our distal outcomes, results showed a relatively robust pattern with veterans in the Stable High or Steady Increasing classes reporting worse scores across all outcomes including PTSD, pain, sleep problems, physical health, depression, and alcohol use disorder. Understanding the interplay between existing vulnerabilities, ongoing stressors, and behavioural health outcomes among veterans is crucial for prevention and intervention efforts.
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Project description:Social distancing remains an effective nonpharmaceutical behavioral interventions to limit the spread of COVID-19 and other airborne diseases, but monitoring and enforcement create nontrivial challenges. Several jurisdictions have turned to "311" resident complaint platforms to engage the public in reporting social distancing non-compliance, but differences in sensitivity to social distancing behaviors can lead to a mis-allocation of resources and increased health risks for vulnerable communities. Using hourly visit data to designated establishments and more than 71,000 social distancing complaints in New York City during the first wave of the pandemic, we develop a method, derived from the Weber-Fechner law, to quantify neighborhood sensitivity and assess how tolerance to social distancing infractions and complaint reporting behaviors vary with neighborhood characteristics. We find that sensitivity to non-compliance is lower in minority and low-income neighborhoods, as well as in lower density areas, resulting in fewer reported complaints than expected given measured levels of overcrowding.
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Project description:The success of personal non-pharmaceutical interventions as a public health strategy requires a high level of compliance from individuals in private social settings. Strategies to increase compliance in these hard-to-reach settings depend upon a comprehensive understanding of the patterns and predictors of protective social behavior. Social cognitive models of protective behavior emphasize the contribution of individual-level factors while social-ecological models emphasize the contribution of environmental factors. This study draws on 28 waves of survey data from the Understanding Coronavirus in America survey to measure patterns of adherence to two protective social behaviors-private social-distancing behavior and private masking behavior-during the COVID-19 pandemic and to assess the role individual and environmental factors play in predicting adherence. Results show that patterns of adherence fall into three categories marked by high, moderate, and low levels of adherence, with just under half of respondents exhibiting a high level of adherence. Health beliefs emerge as the single strongest predictor of adherence. All other environmental and individual-level predictors have relatively poor predictive power or primarily indirect effects.
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