Psychological Impact and Compliance with Staying at Home of the Public to COVID-19 Outbreak during Chinese Spring Festival

Huiwen Xu, Lin Liu, Luming Zhao, En Takashi, Akio Kitayama and Yan Zou
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Huiwen Xu: School of Nursing and Public Health, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Lin Liu: School of Nursing and Public Health, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Luming Zhao: HSBC Business School, Peking University, Beijing 518055, China
En Takashi: Faculty of Nursing, Nagano College of Nursing, Komagane 399-4117, Japan
Akio Kitayama: Faculty of Nursing, Nagano College of Nursing, Komagane 399-4117, Japan
Yan Zou: School of Nursing and Public Health, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 2, 1-8

Abstract: In December 2019, COVID-19 was reported in Wuhan, China. Most of the studies related to the psychological impact and compliance with staying at home due to COVID-19 focused on ten days or one month after the initial “stay-at-home” phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The early psychological impact and behavior change to COVID-19 during the Chinese Spring Festival (the start time for recommendations to stay at home) is uncertain. In this study, people from 23 provinces in China were recruited to participate in an online survey, using Credamo. Psychological impact and compliance with staying at home were evaluated by a self-designed and validated questionnaire. The results indicated that anxiety was the most often reported feeling (mean: 3.69), followed by sadness (mean: 3.63). Participants employed in foreign-owned companies were most likely to express anxiety and sadness. Overall, 61.8% of participants reported hardly going out, whereas 2.4% said they frequently went out during the initial “stay-at-home” phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants with higher levels of anxiety and sadness were most likely to stay at home against the spread of COVID-19, as were female gender. This survey is an important study of the first reaction to staying at home during the initial “stay-at-home” phase coinciding with Chinese Spring Festival. Our findings identified factors associated with higher level of psychological impact and better compliance with staying at home recommendations during Chinese Spring Festival. The findings can be used to formulate precaution interventions to improve the mental health of vulnerable groups and high uptake of policy during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Keywords: novel corona virus; psychological impact; behavioral change; anxiety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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