Socio-Demographic Predictors of Adherence to 2019 Coronavirus Prescribed Recommendations and Lockdown Psychological Impacts: Perspectives of Nigerian Social Media Users

  1. Obasanjo Afolabi Bolarinwa
  2. Olalekan Olagunju
  3. Tesleem Babalola
  4. Balsam Qubais Saeed

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Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is a highly infectious viral disease that has spread to over one hundred and eight countries, including Nigeria. Governments across the globe have been implementing preventive measures towards curbing the spread and impact of the virus. These measures have continued to interfere with the general lifestyle of the people. Hence, this study was aimed at examining the socio-demographic predictors of adherence to prescribed recommendations and the psychological impacts of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown among Nigerian social media users. Methods: This research implemented a cross-sectional survey using an online Google-based questionnaire to elicit required information from potential respondents via social media channels such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and Facebook. An external link to the questionnaire was shared among Nigerian social media users between 1 st and 31 st April 2020, and a total of 1,131 respondents participated in the survey. The explanatory and outcome variables were displayed by frequency and percentage distribution while chi-square analysis was used to show the relationship between the explanatory and outcome variables at 5% level of significant.

Results

The study showed that 99% of the respondents reported to have been following some of the prescribed recommendations, however, only 40.4% of the respondents followed all the recommendations. More than three fifths (63.4%) of the respondents also reported having experienced stressed during the lockdown. Only respondents’ professional background (p<0.05) was a predictor of psychological impact of lockdown, other selected socio-demographic characteristics were not predictors of the outcome variables as p>0.05

Conclusion

We concluded that majority of Nigerian social media users were complying to the prescribed recommendations and that younger age group, female respondents and respondents who are more educated had higher proportion of psychological impacts of lockdown, while the medical/scientific background is the only socio-demographic predictor of psychological impacts of COVID-19 lockdown.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.09.20188482: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: All respondents were asked an informed consent question at the beginning of the questionnaire by asking if they were interested in participating in the online google based questionnaire for this study or not, those who chose that they are not interested in participating were signed-out from completing the next phase of the online google based questionnaire while those who agreed to participate were allowed to move to the next phase involving the completion of the online google based questionnaire.
    IRB: Ethical Consideration: The ethics committee of Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, approved the study of Obafemi Awolowo University Nigeria.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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:
    Strengths and limitations: The main strength of this study is the ability to capture data of interest during a pandemic without any physical contact with any of the respondents, and this is also linked to the fact that answering the questions was done at the convenience of the respondents without any interference. However, this study is also susceptible to certain limitations. The study data collection was done via social media platforms, as such, the younger population were more than the older population in this study, and this is because a larger number of the younger population are more acquitted to the use of technology than the older population hence, the study findings doesn’t depict the true picture of Nigeria populations as a whole.

    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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.4081/jphr.2020.1864
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.09.20188482v2 on medRxiv
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.09.20188482v1 on medRxiv