Research code: IR.GUMS.REC.1400.036.
Ethics code: IR.GUMS.REC.1400.036.
Clinical trials code: IR.GUMS.REC.1400.036.
university of Guilan , zebardast@guilan.ac.ir
Abstract: (349 Views)
Background: Covid-19 is an infectious disease that spreads rapidly to other people and has become a global health emergency (1). Despite the various vaccines, the best way to prevent this disease is to follow the health guidelines announced by health experts. Based on the confirmed research regarding the role of intrapersonal psychological factors in health psychology, it seems that psychological models related to disease prevention and control can explain the subjective factors of getting infected with Covid-19. Health behavior is any type of action that a person takes for his health in the phase without symptoms of illness or health status. In addition to this definition of health behavior, individual characteristics such as beliefs, expectations, motivations, values, perceptions, and emotional features play a role in health behavior (2). In other words, a person intends less to perform the health behavior or to have preventive behaviors of Covid-19, when he believes he can't affect prevention of Covid-19 with their behavior effectively (3).
In general, according to the comprehensive health psychology attitude, people's health in terms of getting infected and not getting infected by Covid-19, like other diseases, is considered at two ends of an illness/wellness continuum to represent people's differing health statuses. Therefore, people's health status changes during this continuum from health to illness by adopting health behavior or illness behavior (4). The answer to why people do or don't do health behaviors is explained in the Health Belief Model (HBM) (5).
In this model, several fundamental cognitive beliefs predict why people take action to prevent, screen, or control disease conditions. These beliefs include 1. Perceived susceptibility; 2. Perceived Severity; 3. Perceived benefits; 4. Perceived costs (perceived barriers); and 5. Cues to Action.
One of the comprehensive approaches to the health belief model is the attribution theory, and its related concept is the health locus of control. The health locus of control states that personal control and health may be related together. People differ in whether they tend to consider events as controllable by themselves (internal source of control) or uncontrollable (external source of control) (3). Some people who have a strong sense of personal control may be more likely or able to maintain their health and prevent illness than those who have a weak sense of control (23). People are different in terms of whether they tend to consider events as controllable by themselves (internal locus of control) or not (external locus of control) (3). The Internal health locus of control is related to this belief that one's behaviors affect his/her health status. In contrast, the external health locus of control depends on one's belief that his/her health outcomes depend on external "random" variables such as luck and fate (9).
However, despite the many studies in the field of health behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic, the limitations of the existing studies in the explanation of concepts based on health behavior models and its complementary part, i.e., the source of health control, the current research were conducted to investigate the role of people's belief in getting infected Covid-19, around two conceptual and explanatory parts. These parts are the health belief model and the health locus of control (attribution theory). since according to health psychology experts, the health belief model is not a complete model on its own (3), And this research includes a comparative study of the mentioned constructs in two groups with and without covid-19. In this study, it's supposed that the health belief model and health locus of control can explain people's beliefs and their adaptation to health behavior and preventive behavior in the Covid-19 epidemic; and there is probably a significant difference between the beliefs of people with and without Covid-19.
Method: The current research design is a descriptive method and causal-comparative method was used to analyze the data. The required sample size was 384 people based on the formula of Cochran and with an error level of 5% (14). In the first quarter of 2021, 539 people responded voluntarily and online to demographic questionnaires, the health belief model specific to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the MHLC Form C Walston health locus of control questionnaire according to the research entry criteria. After normalization and removal of outlier data, 262 people were chosen. The entry criteria of research include the age range of 18 years or older, access to a smartphone, the possibility of using social media, a definite diagnosis of a doctor for contracting Covid-19 with or without a history of hospitalization (in the case of samples related to the infected group). The criteria for exclusions included filling questionnaires incompletely and definite covid_19 infection in the case of non-infected samples. The two questionnaires of the current research were collected into the Google Drive site platform to be presented to the participants online (address: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYu8gPhIJpUFKw5hTKC9WwjsnnNDpFcd-). Then the questionnaire link was shared on popular social media such as Telegram and Instagram. For describing the findings, descriptive statistics were computed on collected data (mean and standard deviation). Also, to compare the health belief model and the health locus of control, between the two groups, the multivariate analysis of variance method was used by SPSS version 26 software.
The ethical considerations were explained to the participants about the research process, the confidentiality of the information, and the approval of the proposed study before implementation in the research ethics committee of Gilan University with the code IR.GUMS.REC.1400.036.
Result: Statistical analysis of data was performed on 262 samples. 102 people in the sample were women, and 160 were men. The oldest age range in the infected group by Covid_19 was 40 to 59 years old. To compare the two groups, an analysis of covariance was performed. The results showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups in the health belief model and health control source too at the 95% confidence level. Also, according to the mean values, the scores of perceived severity; perceived cost; and perceived benefits in the non-infected covid-19 group were larger than the infected group.
Conclusion: The present study showed that health belief as a hidden mediating variable is effective in participants' tendency to perform or not perform healthy behavior. Therefore, in health emergency conditions such as the Covid-19 pandemic, where the rates of infection are high and discovering a definitive treatment for the disease requires considerable time and cost, it seems that focusing more on prevention is more logical and it costs less coping strategy. Therefore, according to the role of knowledge in psychological factors which affect people's preventive behavior, it is necessary that health experts consider psychological training programs for effective health-therapeutic intervention at the level of primary prevention and to control infectious diseases such as Covid-19.
In general, according to the comprehensive health psychology attitude, people's health in terms of getting infected and not getting infected by Covid-19, like other diseases, is considered at two ends of an illness/wellness continuum to represent people's differing health statuses. Therefore, people's health status changes during this continuum from health to illness by adopting health behavior or illness behavior (4). The answer to why people do or don't do health behaviors is explained in the Health Belief Model (HBM) (5).
In this model, several fundamental cognitive beliefs predict why people take action to prevent, screen, or control disease conditions. These beliefs include 1. Perceived susceptibility; 2. Perceived Severity; 3. Perceived benefits; 4. Perceived costs (perceived barriers); and 5. Cues to Action.
One of the comprehensive approaches to the health belief model is the attribution theory, and its related concept is the health locus of control. The health locus of control states that personal control and health may be related together. People differ in whether they tend to consider events as controllable by themselves (internal source of control) or uncontrollable (external source of control) (3). Some people who have a strong sense of personal control may be more likely or able to maintain their health and prevent illness than those who have a weak sense of control (23). People are different in terms of whether they tend to consider events as controllable by themselves (internal locus of control) or not (external locus of control) (3). The Internal health locus of control is related to this belief that one's behaviors affect his/her health status. In contrast, the external health locus of control depends on one's belief that his/her health outcomes depend on external "random" variables such as luck and fate (9).
However, despite the many studies in the field of health behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic, the limitations of the existing studies in the explanation of concepts based on health behavior models and its complementary part, i.e., the source of health control, the current research were conducted to investigate the role of people's belief in getting infected Covid-19, around two conceptual and explanatory parts. These parts are the health belief model and the health locus of control (attribution theory). since according to health psychology experts, the health belief model is not a complete model on its own (3), And this research includes a comparative study of the mentioned constructs in two groups with and without covid-19. In this study, it's supposed that the health belief model and health locus of control can explain people's beliefs and their adaptation to health behavior and preventive behavior in the Covid-19 epidemic; and there is probably a significant difference between the beliefs of people with and without Covid-19.
Method: The current research design is a descriptive method and causal-comparative method was used to analyze the data. The required sample size was 384 people based on the formula of Cochran and with an error level of 5% (14). In the first quarter of 2021, 539 people responded voluntarily and online to demographic questionnaires, the health belief model specific to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the MHLC Form C Walston health locus of control questionnaire according to the research entry criteria. After normalization and removal of outlier data, 262 people were chosen. The entry criteria of research include the age range of 18 years or older, access to a smartphone, the possibility of using social media, a definite diagnosis of a doctor for contracting Covid-19 with or without a history of hospitalization (in the case of samples related to the infected group). The criteria for exclusions included filling questionnaires incompletely and definite covid_19 infection in the case of non-infected samples. The two questionnaires of the current research were collected into the Google Drive site platform to be presented to the participants online (address: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYu8gPhIJpUFKw5hTKC9WwjsnnNDpFcd-). Then the questionnaire link was shared on popular social media such as Telegram and Instagram. For describing the findings, descriptive statistics were computed on collected data (mean and standard deviation). Also, to compare the health belief model and the health locus of control, between the two groups, the multivariate analysis of variance method was used by SPSS version 26 software.
The ethical considerations were explained to the participants about the research process, the confidentiality of the information, and the approval of the proposed study before implementation in the research ethics committee of Gilan University with the code IR.GUMS.REC.1400.036.
Result: Statistical analysis of data was performed on 262 samples. 102 people in the sample were women, and 160 were men. The oldest age range in the infected group by Covid_19 was 40 to 59 years old. To compare the two groups, an analysis of covariance was performed. The results showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups in the health belief model and health control source too at the 95% confidence level. Also, according to the mean values, the scores of perceived severity; perceived cost; and perceived benefits in the non-infected covid-19 group were larger than the infected group.
Conclusion: The present study showed that health belief as a hidden mediating variable is effective in participants' tendency to perform or not perform healthy behavior. Therefore, in health emergency conditions such as the Covid-19 pandemic, where the rates of infection are high and discovering a definitive treatment for the disease requires considerable time and cost, it seems that focusing more on prevention is more logical and it costs less coping strategy. Therefore, according to the role of knowledge in psychological factors which affect people's preventive behavior, it is necessary that health experts consider psychological training programs for effective health-therapeutic intervention at the level of primary prevention and to control infectious diseases such as Covid-19.
Type of Study: Research |
Subject:
Clinical Psychiatry
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