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Factors Affecting the Decline in Personal Non-pharmaceutical Intervention Adoption during the COVID-19 Wave: A Systematic View Based on Risk Perception
Yang, L.-X.; Lin, C.-Y.; Zhan, W.-Z.; Chiang, B.-A.; Chang, E.-C. Why Do We Not Wear Masks Anymore during the COVID-19 Wave? Vaccination Precludes the Adoption of Personal Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions: A Quantitative Study of Taiwanese Residents. Medicina2024, 60, 301.
Yang, L.-X.; Lin, C.-Y.; Zhan, W.-Z.; Chiang, B.-A.; Chang, E.-C. Why Do We Not Wear Masks Anymore during the COVID-19 Wave? Vaccination Precludes the Adoption of Personal Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions: A Quantitative Study of Taiwanese Residents. Medicina 2024, 60, 301.
Yang, L.-X.; Lin, C.-Y.; Zhan, W.-Z.; Chiang, B.-A.; Chang, E.-C. Why Do We Not Wear Masks Anymore during the COVID-19 Wave? Vaccination Precludes the Adoption of Personal Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions: A Quantitative Study of Taiwanese Residents. Medicina2024, 60, 301.
Yang, L.-X.; Lin, C.-Y.; Zhan, W.-Z.; Chiang, B.-A.; Chang, E.-C. Why Do We Not Wear Masks Anymore during the COVID-19 Wave? Vaccination Precludes the Adoption of Personal Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions: A Quantitative Study of Taiwanese Residents. Medicina 2024, 60, 301.
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Although researchers suggested that non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) and vaccination together can provide the best protection from the COVID-19 [1], people’s willingness to adopt personal NPIs seems to decrease through the COVID-19 waves. This study seeks for an explanation for this observation based on the framework of risk perception. Materials and Methods: Two cross-sectional surveys (N = 407 in Survey 1 and N = 505 in Survey 2) were administered before and in the first outbreak of COVID-19 in Taiwan. The survey items were designed to measure people’s recognized severity of COVID-19, worry of COVID-19, intention to adopt personal NPIs, and attitude toward COVID-19 vaccines. We established a structural model according to the framework of risk perception, which was applied to fit the data of the two surveys. Results: The multigroup SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) results showed that worry (i.e., emotional component of risk perception) fully mediates the influence of recognized severity of COVID-19 (cognitive component of risk perception) on the intention to adopt NPIs in each survey. Before the outbreak (i.e., Survey 1), people’s attitude toward COVID-19 vaccines has nothing to do with their worry of COVID-19. However, when people have experienced the real outbreak of COVID-d19 (i.e., Survey 2), their attitude toward COVID-19 vaccines negatively predicts their worry of COVID-19, forming an indirectly negative effect on their intention to adopt personal NPIs, suggesting the occurrence of the Peltzman effect. That is, receiving vaccination makes people feel safer, that the other way around relaxes their alert for COVID-19, thus, declining the intention to adopt personal NPIs.
Keywords
COVID-19; Risk Perception; Peltzman effect
Subject
Social Sciences, Psychology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
