Perceived stress in general public during prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome and its impact on health behavior / 中华预防医学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To find out the perceived stress in general public during prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and its impact on health behavior.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A retrospective survey was conducted in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Taiyuan according to the epidemic situations of SARS, and 2532 subjects were randomly selected from constructive industry, school, and commercial business and residents in urban and rural areas. The perceive stress was measured by Chinese perceived stress scale (CPSS), and health related behavior during SARS was tested by uniform and self-made questionnaire. EpiData 2.0 was used for data management and CPSS value was calculated according to answer to 14 questions contained in the scale. Health risk stress among different population group and health related behavior among low, medium and high stress state were analyzed by SPSS 11.5.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>2424 subjects were involved in the survey. The CPSS value was measured from 0 - 49 (22.7 +/- 6.8), M = 24.0. 39.3% (953/2379) subjects were under the health risk stress. The health related behaviors such as washing hands, opening the window for air, keeping away from others when cough and sneeze, doing exercises etc were reduced with the stress increased. Logistic regression indicated that compared with the persons with the thoughts of nothing serious of SARS, without any dread of SARS, and knowing nothing about prevention of SARS, the perceived stress was significantly related with perceiving of the thread to certain extent (beta = 0.41, Wald chi(2) = 4.84, P = 0.03), worrying little about the epidemic (beta = 0.50, Wald chi(2) = 6.69, P = 0.01), worrying about it to certain extent (beta = 1.39, Wald chi(2) = 48.59, P = 0.00) and scared so much (beta = 1.77, Wald chi(2) = 53.59, P = 0.00), and knowing little about the prevention (beta = 0.74, Wald chi(2) = 4.48, P = 0.03), knowing something about prevention (beta = -0.98, Wald chi(2) = 8.29, P = 0.00) and knowing the prevention very well (beta = -1.18, Wald chi(2) = 10.66, P = 0.00).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The adoption of health related behaviors declined with increase of perceived stress. Opening connection to authority and government, enhancing the awareness of outburst affairs among general public and providing positive social support may be effective ways to reduce the population perceived stress.</p>

The change of health related behavior during and after severe acute respiratory syndrome prevalence / 中华预防医学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To describe the changes of health related behavior and influencing factor during and after the prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), as to providing evidence for inducing public health related behavior to cope with the emergent infectious public health hazards.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>According to the epidemic strength of SARS, Guangzhou, Taiyuan, Hangzhou were selected to be the research areas, and convenience sampling was used to identify 200 city residents, 200 country residents and 400 occupational populations from each area. The uniform and self-made questionnaire was carried out by about 2400 residents.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>All 2424 subjects completed the questionnaire. The correlation coefficient of scores of health related behavior during and after SARS was 0.782 (P < 0.01). And 39.3% subjects were considered as under the health risked stress by CPSS. Multiple linear regression indicated that the scores of health related behavior were significantly related to the perceived stress, demographic characteristics and recognition of SARS.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The public health related behavior should be developing in the SARS, and part of health related behavior had been kept after SARS and part been decreased. Behavior change should depends on the prevalence of the disease, cultural heritage and behavior variability. More attention should be paid to induce the public psychology and behavior and enhance the degree of recognition on related knowledge through health education as to relieving the stress in populations when we conduct to cope with the emergent public health hazards.</p>