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. 2017 Jul 28;18(1):65.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-017-4608-x.

The process by which perceived autonomy support predicts motivation, intention, and behavior for seasonal influenza prevention in Hong Kong older adults

Pak-Kwong Chung  1 , Chun-Qing Zhang  2 , Jing-Dong Liu  2 , Derwin King-Chung Chan  3 , Gangyan Si  4 , Martin S Hagger  2   5   6
Affiliations

The process by which perceived autonomy support predicts motivation, intention, and behavior for seasonal influenza prevention in Hong Kong older adults

Pak-Kwong Chung et al. BMC Public Health. .

Erratum in

  • Erratum to: BMC Public Health, Vol. 18.
    [No authors listed] [No authors listed] BMC Public Health. 2017 Sep 22;17(1):736. doi: 10.1186/s12889-017-4709-6. BMC Public Health. 2017. PMID: 28938882 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

Abstract

Background: This study examined the effectiveness of a theoretical framework that integrates self-determination theory (SDT) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in explaining the use of facemasks to prevent seasonal influenza among Hong Kong older adults.

Methods: Data were collected at two time points in the winter in Hong Kong, during which influenza is most prevalent. At Time 1, older adults (N = 141) completed self-report measures of SDT (perceived autonomy support from senior center staff, autonomous motivation for influenza prevention) and TPB (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention for influenza prevention) constructs with respect to facemask used to prevent infection. Two weeks later, at Time 2, participants' acceptance of a facemask to prevent influenza in the presence of an experimenter with flu-like symptoms was recorded.

Results: Path analysis found that perceived autonomy support of senior center staff was positively and significantly linked to autonomous motivation for facemask use, which, in turn, was positively related to intentions to wear facemasks through the mediation of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. However, the effect of intention on facemask use was not significant.

Conclusions: Results generally support the proposed framework and the findings of previous studies with respect to intention, but the non-significant intention-behavior relationship may warrant future research to examine the reasons for older adults not to wear facemasks to prevent seasonal influenza despite having positive intentions to do so.

Keywords: Elderly; Facemask wearing; Infection; Infectious diseases; Self-determination theory; Theory of planned behavior.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The current study involves human participants and the research protocol had been approved by the committee of Research Ethics and Safety (HASC) at Hong Kong Baptist University. All participants provided written informed consent to participate.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Path Estimates of the Integrated Model. For clarity reasons, the statistically non-significant paths are not displayed. ** p < .01; * p < .05
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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