Correlates of Health-Protective Behavior During the Initial Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Norway

Abstract

The coronavirus outbreak manifested in Norway in March 2020. It was met with a combination of mandatory changes (closing of public institutions) and recommended changes (hygiene behavior, physical distancing). It has been emphasized that health-protective behavior such as increased hygiene or physical distancing are able to slow the spread of infections and flatten the curve. Drawing on previous health-psychological studies during the outbreak of various pandemics, we investigated psychological and demographic factors predicting the adoption and engagement in health-protective behavior and changes in such behavior, attitudes, and emotions over time. We recruited a non-representative sample of Norwegians (n = 8676) during a 15-day period (March 12–26 2020) at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in Norway. Employing both traditional methods and exploratory machine learning, we replicated earlier findings that engagement in health-protective behavior is associated with specific demographic characteristics. Further, we observed that increased media exposure, perceiving measures as effective, and perceiving the outbreak as serious positively was related to engagement in health-protective behavior. We also found indications that hygiene and physical distancing behaviors were related to somewhat different psychological and demographic factors. Over the sampling period, reported engagement in physical distancing increased, while experienced concern or fear declined. Contrary to previous studies, we found no or only small positive predictions by confidence in authorities, knowledge about the outbreak, and perceived individual risk, while all of those variables were rather high. These findings provide guidance for health communications or interventions targeting the adoption of health-protective behaviors in order to diminish the spread of COVID-19.

Preventive health behaviours during coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic based on health belief model among Egyptians

“…As knowledge and media exposure were, on average, quite high. It is similar to a result of the study conducted in Norway, Northern Europe which showed that knowledge had no or even a negative relationship with engagement in protective behaviour [18]. There are fluctuations in the level of preventive behaviours from COVID-19 at different time sequences where they were higher when assessed through the first interview, then decreased through the second interview and re-increased through the third one.…”

“…Also, an Australian study conducted in an earlier stage of the pandemic by Faasse and Newby [17] found positive predictions by media exposure, concern and worry, as well as effectiveness of behaviour. In addition, confidence in authorities and believing that too much fuss was made resulted in less health-protective behaviour [18]. The participants' knowledge about COVID-19 was poor at the beginning of the pandemic then increased after 4 weeks.…”

Smittevern blant Oslo-ungdom under covid-19-pandemien

“…Generelt er sosioøkonomisk status og tilhørende ulikhet i helserelatert livsstil sterke prediktorer for sykelighet (11). Kvinner følger oftere helserelaterte råd enn menn (11), og norske data indikerer at kvinner tar flere forholdsregler mot å bli smittet (6). Videre synes de landene som rammes hardest av covid-19-pandemien, å vaere kjennetegnet av lav tillit mellom mennesker og til myndighetene (12).…”

“…I tråd med tidligere forskning rapporterte jenter å følge smittevernreglene mer enn gutter (4,6). Rapportert oppslutning om reglene var lavest blant de yngste ungdommene.…”

“…Slik kunnskap ville vaert nyttig for å estimere risikoen for at de faktisk kunne bli smittet. Videre kan faktorer vi ikke inkluderte i studien, som bekymring for smitte (6), ha betydning for ungdoms smittevernatferd.…”