Population anxiety and positive behaviour change during the COVID‐19 epidemic: Cross‐sectional surveys in Singapore, China and Italy
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
Listed in
- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
Abstract
Background
On 31 December 2019, an epidemic of pneumonia of unknown aetiology was first reported in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, People's Republic of China. A rapidly progressing epidemic of COVID‐19 ensued within China, with multiple exportations to other countries. We aimed to measure perceptions and responses towards COVID‐19 in three countries to understand how population‐level anxiety can be mitigated in the early phases of a pandemic.
Methods
Between February and March 2020, we conducted online surveys in Singapore, China and Italy with a total of 4505 respondents to measure respondents’ knowledge, perceptions, anxiety and behaviours towards the COVID‐19 epidemic, and identified factors associated with lower anxiety and more positive behavioural responses.
Results
Respondents reported high awareness of COVID‐19 and its accompanying symptoms, comparable information‐seeking habits and similarly high levels of information sufficiency, adherence to and acceptance of public health control measures. Higher self‐efficacy was associated with lower anxiety levels in all three countries, while willingness to comply with restrictive measures and greater information sufficiency were associated with more positive behavioural changes to reduce spread of infection.
Conclusion
Population‐level anxiety and behavioural responses to an outbreak can be influenced by information provided. This should be used to inform future outbreak preparedness plans, taking into account the importance of increasing population‐level self‐efficacy and information sufficiency to reduce anxiety and promote positive behavioural changes.
Article activity feed
-
-
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.14.20065862: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Statistical analyses were performed in R version 3.6.1.8 Ethics statement: Ethical approval for this study was provided by the Departmental Ethics Review Committee of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore (SPH-003; SPH-004), and the Departmental Ethics Review Committee of the Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore (CNM-20200202-01). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Panel members were approached by email or SMS to complete a questionnaire … SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.14.20065862: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: Statistical analyses were performed in R version 3.6.1.8 Ethics statement: Ethical approval for this study was provided by the Departmental Ethics Review Committee of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore (SPH-003; SPH-004), and the Departmental Ethics Review Committee of the Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore (CNM-20200202-01). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Panel members were approached by email or SMS to complete a questionnaire administered on a secure web application, REDCap. REDCapsuggested: (REDCap, RRID:SCR_003445)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:A limitation of this approach is the trade-off in terms of population representativeness. Our sample shows a pronounced over-representation of respondents with at least a university education in both Singapore and China, which may affect the generalisability of our findings.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
-
