Perceived COVID-19 susceptibility and preventive behaviors: moderating effects of social support in Italy and South Korea

BMC Public Health

Research

Hannah Kang¹  Soontae An²  Peter J. Schulz³ 

[1] Department of Politics and Communication Studies, Hannam University, 34430, Daejeon, South Korea;Division of Communication and Media, Ewha Womans University, 03760, Seoul, South Korea;Division of Communication and Media, Ewha Womans University, 03760, Seoul, South Korea;Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland;

关键词: Social support;    Susceptibility;    Preventive behavior;    Pandemics;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-022-14866-3

 received in 2022-04-29, accepted in 2022-12-13,  发布年份 2022

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic hit Italy much harder than South Korea. As a way of explaining the different impact in the two countries, this study examines the moderating role of social support on the relationship between perceived susceptibility and preventive behaviors in the two countries.MethodsSurveys were conducted in South Korea (n = 1396) and Italy (n = 487) of participants aged 50 to 89 years.ResultsSouth Koreans felt higher levels of perceived social support than their Italian counterparts. As would be expected, greater perceived susceptibility was associated with increased preventive behavior. Furthermore, a significant three-way interaction effect was found for perceived susceptibility, social support, and country. For Italians, a person who feels him/herself highly susceptible will increase preventive behaviors, if there is a lot of social support. On the other hand, for South Koreans, those with a low level of susceptibility perform more preventive measures than people with a high level of susceptibility if there is a lot of social support.ConclusionsThis study provides insights into how cognitive factors, such as susceptibility and severity, as well as social and environmental factors can be taken into account, and the public be told the real risk and given behavioral guidelines when a pandemic is approaching. Given the critical role of social support as a coping mechanism in crisis situations, societies should mull over ways to increase emotional and instrumental support.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2022

【 图 表 】

Fig. 1