Preventive behaviors against COVID-19 among health care providers in Iran: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background and aim: During outbreaks of infectious diseases, if healthcare providers do not follow the principles of prevention, the risk of personal infection increases and they become a source of infection spread. This study aimed to determine the factors related to the preventive health behaviors of COVID-19 among Iranian healthcare providers based on protection motivation theory (PMT).

Methods: This analytical cross-sectional study included 346 healthcare providers. Data was collected by an online researcher-made questionnaire based on PMT. To analyze the data, independent T tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Spearman correlation coefficient, multiple linear regression, and SPSS 22 software were used. α was considered as 0.05.

Results: 85.3% of the healthcare providers would always wear masks, 80.7% would always refuse to kiss and touch hands with others, and 34.7% sometimes would exercise at home. The preventive behaviors were significantly correlated with protection motivation (r = 0.84), self-efficacy (r = 0.51), response efficiency (r = 0.43), perceived severity (r = 0.41) Fear (r = 0.21), perceived susceptibility (r = 0.11), response cost (r = -0.14), and reward (r = -0.15). PMT constructs were able to predict 77% of the variance of the behaviors and the protection motivation construct was the strongest predictor (β = 0.806). Income above 300 Dolars per month was significantly related to the decrease in the mean score of preventive behaviors against COVID-19. The female sex and the individual or family history of infectious diseases were significantly related to increasing the mean score of COVID-19 preventive behaviors.

Conclusion: Based on the study results, it is suggested that some educational interventions be designed and implemented with a focus on this construct and the perceived severity construct and that more attention be given to the education of health care providers with high-income levels, male providers, and the individuals without a history of corona infection in themselves or their family members.

Keywords: COVID‐19; behavior; healthcare providers; prevention; protection motivation theory.