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Attitudes and Perceptions of Health Protection Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19 in Italy and Poland

Background: During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (April to May 2020), 6,169 Polish and 939 Italian residents were surveyed with an online questionnaire investigating socio-demographic information and personality traits (first section) as well as attitudes, position, and efficacy perception...

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Autores principales: Lorettu, Liliana, Mastrangelo, Giuseppe, Stepien, Joanna, Grabowski, Jakub, Meloni, Roberta, Piu, Davide, Michalski, Tomasz, Waszak, Przemyslaw M., Bellizzi, Saverio, Cegolon, Luca
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8754188/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35035377
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.805790
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author Lorettu, Liliana
Mastrangelo, Giuseppe
Stepien, Joanna
Grabowski, Jakub
Meloni, Roberta
Piu, Davide
Michalski, Tomasz
Waszak, Przemyslaw M.
Bellizzi, Saverio
Cegolon, Luca
author_facet Lorettu, Liliana
Mastrangelo, Giuseppe
Stepien, Joanna
Grabowski, Jakub
Meloni, Roberta
Piu, Davide
Michalski, Tomasz
Waszak, Przemyslaw M.
Bellizzi, Saverio
Cegolon, Luca
author_sort Lorettu, Liliana
collection PubMed
description Background: During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (April to May 2020), 6,169 Polish and 939 Italian residents were surveyed with an online questionnaire investigating socio-demographic information and personality traits (first section) as well as attitudes, position, and efficacy perceptions on the impact of lockdown (second section) and various health protection measures enforced (third section). Methods: The “health protection attitude score” (HPAS), an endpoint obtained by pooling up the answers to questions of the third section of the survey tool, was investigated by multiple linear regression models, reporting regression coefficients (RC) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Results: Concerns for business and health due to COVID-19 were associated with a positive attitude toward risk reduction rules. By contrast, male sex, concerns about the reliability of information available online on COVID-19 and its prevention, along with the feeling of not being enough informed on the transmissibility/prevention of SARS-CoV-2 were associated with a negative attitude toward risk mitigation measures. Discussion: A recent literature review identified two social patterns with different features in relation to their attitude toward health protection rules against the spread of COVID-19. Factors positively associated with adherence to public health guidelines were perceived threat of COVID-19, trust in government, female sex, and increasing age. Factors associated with decreased compliance were instead underestimation of the COVID-19 risk, limited knowledge of the pandemic, belief in conspiracy theories, and political conservativism. Very few studies have tested interventions to change attitudes or behaviors. Conclusion: To improve attitude and compliance toward risk reduction norms, a key intervention is fostering education and knowledge on COVID-19 health risk and prevention among the general population. However, information on COVID-19 epidemiology might be user-generated and contaminated by social media, which contributed to creating an infodemic around the disease. To prevent the negative impact of social media and to increase adherence to health protection, stronger content control by providers of social platforms is recommended.
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spelling pubmed-87541882022-01-13 Attitudes and Perceptions of Health Protection Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19 in Italy and Poland Lorettu, Liliana Mastrangelo, Giuseppe Stepien, Joanna Grabowski, Jakub Meloni, Roberta Piu, Davide Michalski, Tomasz Waszak, Przemyslaw M. Bellizzi, Saverio Cegolon, Luca Front Psychol Psychology Background: During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (April to May 2020), 6,169 Polish and 939 Italian residents were surveyed with an online questionnaire investigating socio-demographic information and personality traits (first section) as well as attitudes, position, and efficacy perceptions on the impact of lockdown (second section) and various health protection measures enforced (third section). Methods: The “health protection attitude score” (HPAS), an endpoint obtained by pooling up the answers to questions of the third section of the survey tool, was investigated by multiple linear regression models, reporting regression coefficients (RC) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Results: Concerns for business and health due to COVID-19 were associated with a positive attitude toward risk reduction rules. By contrast, male sex, concerns about the reliability of information available online on COVID-19 and its prevention, along with the feeling of not being enough informed on the transmissibility/prevention of SARS-CoV-2 were associated with a negative attitude toward risk mitigation measures. Discussion: A recent literature review identified two social patterns with different features in relation to their attitude toward health protection rules against the spread of COVID-19. Factors positively associated with adherence to public health guidelines were perceived threat of COVID-19, trust in government, female sex, and increasing age. Factors associated with decreased compliance were instead underestimation of the COVID-19 risk, limited knowledge of the pandemic, belief in conspiracy theories, and political conservativism. Very few studies have tested interventions to change attitudes or behaviors. Conclusion: To improve attitude and compliance toward risk reduction norms, a key intervention is fostering education and knowledge on COVID-19 health risk and prevention among the general population. However, information on COVID-19 epidemiology might be user-generated and contaminated by social media, which contributed to creating an infodemic around the disease. To prevent the negative impact of social media and to increase adherence to health protection, stronger content control by providers of social platforms is recommended. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-12-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8754188/ /pubmed/35035377 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.805790 Text en Copyright © 2021 Lorettu, Mastrangelo, Stepien, Grabowski, Meloni, Piu, Michalski, Waszak, Bellizzi and Cegolon. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Lorettu, Liliana
Mastrangelo, Giuseppe
Stepien, Joanna
Grabowski, Jakub
Meloni, Roberta
Piu, Davide
Michalski, Tomasz
Waszak, Przemyslaw M.
Bellizzi, Saverio
Cegolon, Luca
Attitudes and Perceptions of Health Protection Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19 in Italy and Poland
title Attitudes and Perceptions of Health Protection Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19 in Italy and Poland
title_full Attitudes and Perceptions of Health Protection Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19 in Italy and Poland
title_fullStr Attitudes and Perceptions of Health Protection Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19 in Italy and Poland
title_full_unstemmed Attitudes and Perceptions of Health Protection Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19 in Italy and Poland
title_short Attitudes and Perceptions of Health Protection Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19 in Italy and Poland
title_sort attitudes and perceptions of health protection measures against the spread of covid-19 in italy and poland
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8754188/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35035377
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.805790
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