Sociodemographic, Cognitive, and Emotional Determinants of Two Health Behaviors during SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak: An Online Study among French-Speaking Belgian Responders during the Spring Lockdown

To contain the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate, health authorities have encouraged the population to enhance protective behaviors such as physical distancing and handwashing. Behavioral sciences emphasize the role of sociocognitive determinants to explain health behaviors, while largely ignoring emotional factors. In a large online study (N > 4000), we investigated the role of sociodemographic, cognitive, emotional, and social factors that can facilitate or hinder handwashing and limitation of social contacts. Data were collected from March 18 until April 19, 2020, which corresponds to the spring lockdown and the first peak of the pandemic in Belgium. Logistic regressions showed that sociodemographic factors (gender, age, level of education) and the dimensions of the Theory of Planned Behavior (intentions, attitudes, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms) had a strong impact on health behaviors, but that emotional factors explained an additional part of the variance. Being more attentive/determined and frightened/anxious, along with scoring higher on health anxiety were related to a higher frequency of handwashing. In contrast, being enthusiastic/happy was related to lower adherence to limiting social contacts. Our results suggest that the type of predictors and the direction of associations depend on the type of health behavior considered. The role of specific emotional factors in addition to more classical predictors is discussed. The study offers new perspectives regarding the factors that are associated with the adherence to behaviors recommended to adopt when faced with a pandemic.