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Voluntary Reduction of Social Interaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan: Related Factors and Association with Perceived Social Support
This study aimed to determine the proportion of individuals who voluntarily reduced interaction with their family members, friends, and colleagues or classmates to avoid coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and the associations of reduced social interaction with perceived social support dur...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7672562/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33142789 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17218039 |
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author | Chou, Wei-Po Wang, Peng-Wei Chen, Shiou-Lan Chang, Yu-Ping Wu, Chia-Fen Lu, Wei-Hsin Yen, Cheng-Fang |
author_facet | Chou, Wei-Po Wang, Peng-Wei Chen, Shiou-Lan Chang, Yu-Ping Wu, Chia-Fen Lu, Wei-Hsin Yen, Cheng-Fang |
author_sort | Chou, Wei-Po |
collection | PubMed |
description | This study aimed to determine the proportion of individuals who voluntarily reduced interaction with their family members, friends, and colleagues or classmates to avoid coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and the associations of reduced social interaction with perceived social support during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan. Moreover, the related factors of voluntary reduction of social interaction were examined. We recruited participants via a Facebook advertisement. We determined the reduced social interaction, perceived social support, cognitive and affective constructs of health belief and demographic characteristics among 1954 respondents (1305 women and 649 men; mean age: 37.9 years with standard deviation 10.8 years). In total, 38.1% of respondents voluntarily reduced their social interaction with friends to avoid COVID-19 infection, 36.1% voluntarily reduced their interaction with colleagues or classmates, and 11.1% voluntarily reduced interaction with family members. Respondents who voluntarily reduced interaction with other people reported lower perceived social support than those who did not voluntarily reduce interaction. Respondents who were older and had a higher level of worry regarding contracting COVID-19 were more likely to voluntarily reduce interaction with family members, friends, and colleagues or classmates to avoid COVID-19 infection than respondents who were younger and had a lower level of worry regarding contracting COVID-19, respectively. The present study revealed that despite strict social distancing measures not being implemented in Taiwan, more than one-third of respondents voluntarily reduced their interaction with friends and colleagues or classmates. The general public should be encouraged to maintain social contacts through appropriately distanced in-person visits and telecommunication. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7672562 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-76725622020-11-19 Voluntary Reduction of Social Interaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan: Related Factors and Association with Perceived Social Support Chou, Wei-Po Wang, Peng-Wei Chen, Shiou-Lan Chang, Yu-Ping Wu, Chia-Fen Lu, Wei-Hsin Yen, Cheng-Fang Int J Environ Res Public Health Article This study aimed to determine the proportion of individuals who voluntarily reduced interaction with their family members, friends, and colleagues or classmates to avoid coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and the associations of reduced social interaction with perceived social support during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan. Moreover, the related factors of voluntary reduction of social interaction were examined. We recruited participants via a Facebook advertisement. We determined the reduced social interaction, perceived social support, cognitive and affective constructs of health belief and demographic characteristics among 1954 respondents (1305 women and 649 men; mean age: 37.9 years with standard deviation 10.8 years). In total, 38.1% of respondents voluntarily reduced their social interaction with friends to avoid COVID-19 infection, 36.1% voluntarily reduced their interaction with colleagues or classmates, and 11.1% voluntarily reduced interaction with family members. Respondents who voluntarily reduced interaction with other people reported lower perceived social support than those who did not voluntarily reduce interaction. Respondents who were older and had a higher level of worry regarding contracting COVID-19 were more likely to voluntarily reduce interaction with family members, friends, and colleagues or classmates to avoid COVID-19 infection than respondents who were younger and had a lower level of worry regarding contracting COVID-19, respectively. The present study revealed that despite strict social distancing measures not being implemented in Taiwan, more than one-third of respondents voluntarily reduced their interaction with friends and colleagues or classmates. The general public should be encouraged to maintain social contacts through appropriately distanced in-person visits and telecommunication. MDPI 2020-10-31 2020-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7672562/ /pubmed/33142789 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17218039 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Chou, Wei-Po Wang, Peng-Wei Chen, Shiou-Lan Chang, Yu-Ping Wu, Chia-Fen Lu, Wei-Hsin Yen, Cheng-Fang Voluntary Reduction of Social Interaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan: Related Factors and Association with Perceived Social Support |
title | Voluntary Reduction of Social Interaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan: Related Factors and Association with Perceived Social Support |
title_full | Voluntary Reduction of Social Interaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan: Related Factors and Association with Perceived Social Support |
title_fullStr | Voluntary Reduction of Social Interaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan: Related Factors and Association with Perceived Social Support |
title_full_unstemmed | Voluntary Reduction of Social Interaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan: Related Factors and Association with Perceived Social Support |
title_short | Voluntary Reduction of Social Interaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan: Related Factors and Association with Perceived Social Support |
title_sort | voluntary reduction of social interaction during the covid-19 pandemic in taiwan: related factors and association with perceived social support |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7672562/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33142789 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17218039 |
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