Perceptions of COVID-19 Self-Testing and Recommendations for Implementation and Scale up Among Black/African Americans: Implications for the COVID-19 STEP Project (preprint)

Background COVID-19 self-testing (ST) is an innovative strategy with the potential to increase the access and uptake of testing and ultimately to limit the spread of the virus. To maximize the uptake and reach of this promising strategy and inform intervention development and scale up, research is needed to understand the acceptability of and willingness to use this tool. This is vital to ensure that Black/African Americans are reached by the Biden-Harris Administration’s free national COVID-19 ST program. This study aimed to explore the acceptability and recommendations to promote and scale up the uptake of COVID-19 ST among Black/African Americans.Methods We conducted a cross-sectional qualitative study using a semi-structured survey to assess barriers and facilitators to the uptake of COVID-19 ST among a convenience sample of 28 self-identified Black/African Americans from schools, community centers, and faith-based institutions in Ohio and Maryland. Inductive content analysis was conducted to identify categories and subcategories related to acceptability and recommendations for implementing and scaling up COVID-19 ST in communities.Results Participants perceived COVID-19 self-testing as an acceptable tool that is beneficial to prevent transmission and address some of the barriers associated with health facility testing, such as transportation cost and human contact at the health facility. However, concerns were raised regarding the accurate use of the kits and costs. Recommendations for implementing and scaling up COVID-19 ST included engagement of community stakeholders to disseminate information about COVID-19 self-testing and creating culturally appropriate education tools to promote knowledge of and clear instructions about how to properly use COVID-19 ST kits. Based on these recommendations, the COVID-19 STEP (Self-Testing Education and Promotion) Project is being developed and will involve engaging community partners such as barbers, church leaders, and other community-based organizations to increase the uptake and use of free COVID-19 ST kits among Black/African Americans.Conclusion Findings showed that most participants considered COVID-19 ST valuable for encouraging COVID-19 testing. However, cost and accuracy concerns may pose barriers. Future work should consider implementing interventions that leverage the benefits of COVID-19 ST and further assess the extent to which these identified facilitators and barriers may influence COVID-19 ST uptake.

Initial risk perception and feeling of preparedness of primary care physicians regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium, France and Spain in February 2020 (preprint)

Background: The knowledge of risk perceptions in primary care could help health authorities to manage epidemics. Methods A European multi-center study was conducted in France, Belgium and Spain to describe the perceptions, the level of anxiety and the feeling of preparedness of primary healthcare physicians towards the COVID-19 infection at the beginning of the pandemic. The factors associated with the feeling of preparedness were studied using multivariate logistic regressions. Results A total of 511 physicians participated to the study. Among them, only 16.3% (n = 82) were highly anxious about the pandemic, 50.6% (n = 254) had the feeling to have a high level of information, 80.5% (n = 409) found the measures taken by the health authorities suitable to limit the spread of COVID-19, and 45.2% (n = 229) felt prepared to face the epidemic. Factors associated with feeling prepared were: being a Spanish practitioner (adjusted OR = 4.34; 95%CI [2.47; 7.80]), being a man (aOR = 2.57, 95%CI [1.69; 3.96]), finding the measures taken by authorities appropriate (aOR = 1.72, 95%CI [1.01; 3.00]) and being highly informed (aOR = 4.82, 95%CI [2.62; 9.19]). Conclusions Regarding the dramatic evolution of the pandemic in Europe in the weeks following the study, it appears that information available at this time and transmitted to the physicians could have given a wrong assessment of the spread and the severity of the disease. It seems essential to better integrate the primary care physicians into the information, training and protection channels. A comparison between countries could help to select the most effective measures in terms of information and communication.

Determinants of preventive behaviors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in France: comparing the sociocultural, psychosocial and social cognitive explanations. (preprint)

In absence of effective pharmaceutical treatments, the individual’s compliance with a series of behavioral recommendations provided by the public health authorities play a critical role in the control and prevention of SARS-CoV2 infection. However, we still do not know much about the rate and determinants of adoption of the recommended health behaviors. This paper examines the compliance with the main behavioral recommendations, and compares sociocultural, psychosocial and social cognitive explanations for its variation in the French population. Based on the current literature, these 3 categories of factors were identified as potential determinants of individual differences in the health preventive behaviors. The data used for these analyses are drawn from 2 cross-sectional studies (N ≥ 2,000) conducted after the lockdown and before the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic in France. The participants were drawn from a larger internet consumer panel where recruitment was stratified to generate a socio-demographically representative sample of the French adult population. Overall, the results show a very high rate of compliance with the behavioral recommendations among the participants. A series of linear regression analyses were then performed to assess the potential explanatory power of these approaches in complying with these recommendations by successively including sociocultural factors, psychosocial factors, social cognitive factors, and then all factors, in the model. Only the inclusion of the cognitive variables substantially increased the explained variance of the self-reported adoption of preventive behaviors, providing better support for the social cognitive than the sociocultural and psychosocial explanations.

Are people excessively pessimistic about the risk of coronavirus infection? (preprint)

The recent emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 in China has raised the spectre of a novel, potentially catastrophic pandemic in both scientific and lay communities throughout the world. In this particular context, people have been accused of being excessively pessimistic regarding the future consequences of this emerging health threat. However, consistent with previous research in social psychology, a large survey conducted in Europe in the early stage of the COVID-19 epidemic shows that the majority of respondents was actually overly optimistic about the risk of infection.