Public Perception and Hand Hygiene Behavior During COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

Abstract

Hand hygiene practices are important not only during the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, but also critical to prevent the possible spread of other infectious diseases. This study aims to examine the current hand hygiene behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic, post pandemic behavior intentions, and the relationship between behavior, psychosocial and contextual factors. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted from 28 May to 12 June 2020, with 896 valid responses obtained from Indonesian citizens over 18 years old. The survey questions included demographic characteristics, individual practices, risk perceptions, attitude, norm factors and ability factors related to hand hygiene during the COVID-19 pandemic. Descriptive analysis, chi square and multiple logistic regression tests were used to analyse the data. The results showed that 82.32% of female respondents and 73.37% male respondents reported handwashing practice 8 times or more per day during COVID-19 pandemic. Participants who perceived themselves at higher risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 (OR 7.08, 2.26–22.17), had less negative perception toward the practice (OR 1.93, 1.32–2.82), perceived handwashing as an effective preventive measure (OR 1.77, 1.23–2.54), were female (OR 1.71, 1.21–2.41), perceived a more supportive norm (OR 1.68, 1.15–2.44) and noticed more barriers in access to handwashing facilities (OR 1.57, 1.05–2.36) were more likely to engage in hand hygiene practice more frequently during the pandemic. In conclusion, the majority of respondents did increase their frequency of hand hygiene practices during COVID-19 pandemic. In line with previous studies in other pandemic contexts, sex, perceived susceptibility and effectiveness are important predictors of hand hygiene practices, which are similar to findings from previous studies in other pandemic contexts. Addressing social norm related to the perceived hand hygiene practices of friends and important people is a potential health promotion strategy by creating hand hygiene norms in the community.

Prevention of Covid-19 Transmission in Islamic Boarding Schools (Pesantren): Literature Review

“…In the results of the research, it is stated that providing health protocol facilities such as hand washing facilities for students at pesantren can prevent the transmission. In line with these results, Dwipayanti et al (2021) also stated that washing hands with running water and soap is considered effective in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 with an OR value of 1.77, 1.23-2.54. Thus, the provision of hand washing facilities in the pesantren environment to prevent the transmission of covid 19 is one of the effective efforts to build a clean and healthy lifestyle as an effort to prevent the transmission of covid 19 in the pesantren environment.…”

Development and validation of a questionnaire to measure attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination and pandemic

“…The final factor that we identified through the factors analysis was compliance with hygiene measures. Research has already shown that the COVID-19 pandemic affects in a positive way the personal hygiene behaviors such as hand washing (Dwipayanti et al, 2021; Hu et al, 2021; Huang et al, 2021). In general, people have modified their attitudes to confront the risk propensity of the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Contextual Determinants of General Household Hygiene Conditions in Rural Indonesia

“…One can then use the adapted SI forms to inform which hygiene aspects should be tackled, which can then improve the general household hygiene conditions. Some hygiene-related studies have been conducted in Indonesia, for example, on handwashing practices [15][16][17] and general household hygiene conditions [5,13]. There are is also evidence that household hygiene is associated with children's malnutrition in Indonesia [18,19].…”