Reasoned action approach and compliance with recommended behaviours to prevent the transmission of the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus in the UK

Abstract

Objectives. To examine associations between demographics, people's beliefs, and compliance with behaviours recommended by the UK government to prevent the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Design. A two-wave online survey conducted one week apart during the national lockdown (April, 2020). Measures. A sample of 477 UK residents completed baseline measures from the reasoned action approach (experiential attitudes, instrumental attitudes, injunctive norms, descriptive norms, capacity, autonomy, and intention) and perceived susceptibility for each of the following recommended behaviours: limiting leaving home, keeping at least 2 m away from other people when outside and when inside shops, not visiting or meeting friends or other family members, and washing hands when returning home. Self-reported compliance with each of the recommended behaviours was assessed one week later. Results. Rates of full compliance with the recommended behaviours ranged from 31% (keeping at least 2 m away from other people when inside shops) to 68% (not visiting or meeting friends or other family members). Capacity was a significant predictor of compliance with each of the five recommended behaviours. Increasing age and intentions were also predictive of compliance with three of the behaviours. Conclusions. Interventions to increase compliance with the recommended behaviours to prevent the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, especially those relating to social distancing, need to bolster people's intentions and perceptions of capacity. This may be achieved through media-based information campaigns as well as environmental changes to make compliance with such measures easier. Such interventions should particularly target younger adults. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The vital role of health psychology in the response to COVID‐19

“…To date, we have published 17 COVID-19 papers (Bacon & Corr, 2020;Gibson Miller et al, 2020;Grover, McClelland, & Furnham, 2020;Horesh, Kapel Lev-Ari, & Hasson-Ohayon, 2020;Howard, 2020;Lades, Laffan, Daly, & Delaney, 2020;Lauri Korajlija & Jokic-Begic, 2020;Lin et al, 2020;Marinthe, Brown, Delouvee, & Jolley, 2020;McElroy et al, 2020;Niepel, Kranz, Borgonovi, Emslander, & Greiff, 2020;Norman, Wilding, & Conner, 2020;Olagoke, Olagoke, & Hughes, 2020;Rubaltelli, Tedaldi, Orabona, & Scrimin, 2020;Shevlin et al, 2020;Williams et al, 2020), which have addressed a variety of topics including: the use theoretical models (COM-B and social cognition models) to understand and predict COVID-19 health behaviours (Gibson Miller et al, 2020;Lin et al, 2020;Norman et al, 2020), risk perception (Niepel et al, 2020;Olagoke et al, 2020), and psychological distress (Horesh et al, 2020;Lades et al, 2020;McElroy et al, 2020;Shevlin et al, 2020). presented a systematic method for rapidly responding to priority SARS-CoV-2 policy questions.…”

“…Others have used an integrated social cognition model to explain preventative COVID-19 behaviours, reporting that coping planning and action planning had the strongest associations with behaviour although other predominant factors were found to include behavioural intentions, self-efficacy, and perceived behavioural control (Lin et al, 2020). Norman et al (2020) utilized the Reasoned Action Approach examining associations between demographics, people's beliefs, and compliance with transmission reducing behaviours recommended by the UK government during the national lockdown. Baseline levels of confidence (capacity) were associated with compliance to each of the five recommended behaviours one week later.…”

COVID-19 prevention behaviour over time in Australia: Patterns and long-term predictors from April to July 2020

“…The broader behaviour change literature and theoretical models suggest that self-efficacy (confidence to perform a behaviour), attitudes towards the target behaviour, social norms and risk perception, often play an important role in uptake of health behaviours (8-11). However, to date, only a few peer-reviewed studies in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have investigated whether psychosocial factors tied to behavioural theories can predict continued adherence to COVID-19 prevention behaviours (12-14). For example, three studies reported that intention and confidence to perform/maintain a COVID prevention behaviour (self-efficacy) were consistently associated with self-reported behaviour one week later (12-14).…”

“…However, to date, only a few peer-reviewed studies in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have investigated whether psychosocial factors tied to behavioural theories can predict continued adherence to COVID-19 prevention behaviours (12-14). For example, three studies reported that intention and confidence to perform/maintain a COVID prevention behaviour (self-efficacy) were consistently associated with self-reported behaviour one week later (12-14). Two of these studies also measured action planning and self-monitoring and observed that these constructs predicted distancing behaviour(12, 13).…”

“…The short follow-up period might also mean that findings are tied to the specific context at that point in time. For example, each of the longitudinal studies described above were conducted in April or May 2020 (12-14). During this time in Australia, national restrictions limited the extent that people could leave their homes.…”