Perception of COVID-19 Threats among Individuals from Different Countries: A Survey

OBJECTIVE: The aim is to discover the perceptions of individuals living in different countries relating to Covid-19 and develop a joint initiative against this virus and future outbreaks by making comparisons over a number of sociological factors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional research design was applied, which is a type of descriptive survey belonging to quantitative research. The sample was selected from various countries: Turkey, USA, France, Germany, Netherlands, Georgia, India, and South Africa. The total number of participants is 1020 people. The data were provided through the One-Way Anova Test and collected based on "The Covid-19 Perception Questionnaire" which contained 5 personal information and 10 items. RESULTS: We found that statistically significant differences among the Covid-19 perceptions of individuals. The effect size showed that this difference is at a large level. As the variances did not evenly distribute, the Dunnett C multiple comparison tests were applied. According to this, the highest mean in Georgia and India, the lowest mean in Germany and the USA. CONCLUSION: The majority have the national and international awareness required to cope with the pandemic. However, the source of the virus has still not been explained so it has been observed that the number of people who believe in conspiracy theories is also high. As a result, people need more reliable sources of information, especially the World Health Organization should make more precise explanations to people about the origin of Covid-19 and updated information should be made available to people constantly. In addition, although a long time passed after the appearance of the Covid-19, people are still confused.