Exploring the Impacts of Preventative Health Behaviors with Respect to COVID-19: An Altruistic Perspective.

This study aims to explore the impact of gender and anxiety on various preventative health behaviors, and the relationships among these preventative health behaviors, individual well-being and depression, from the perspective of altruism. This study employed an online questionnaire survey, and 136 males and 204 females participated in the survey. The results of this study showed that females exhibited better preventative health behaviors than males, including hygiene habits, social distancing and behaviors intended to help others mitigate the epidemic. Anxiety regarding COVID-19 infection encouraged individuals to adopt hygienic habits and social distancing measures rather than to help others mitigate the epidemic. Hygiene habits improved the individual's psychological well-being. Helping others mitigate the epidemic improved the individual's psychological well-being and social well-being and contributed to reducing individual depression. However, the preventative health behavior involved in social distancing was not conducive to emotional well-being or social well-being. Affective elements are related to individual behaviors. Therefore, the use of prosocial, altruistic language may play an important role with respect to encouraging people to comply with preventative health behaviors in the context of COVID-19. In addition, it is worth noting that different preventative health behaviors may have different effects on people's mental health, especially when implementing social distancing-related epidemic mitigation behaviors. The question of how to prevent negative psychological effects in restricted actors must be answered, and the degree of life satisfaction experienced by those actors must also be taken into account.

Exploring the Impacts of Preventative Health Behaviors with Respect to COVID-19: An Altruistic Perspective

This study aims to explore the impact of gender and anxiety on various preventative health behaviors, and the relationships among these preventative health behaviors, individual well-being and depression, from the perspective of altruism. This study employed an online questionnaire survey, and 136 males and 204 females participated in the survey. The results of this study showed that females exhibited better preventative health behaviors than males, including hygiene habits, social distancing and behaviors intended to help others mitigate the epidemic. Anxiety regarding COVID-19 infection encouraged individuals to adopt hygienic habits and social distancing measures rather than to help others mitigate the epidemic. Hygiene habits improved the individual's psychological well-being. Helping others mitigate the epidemic improved the individual's psychological well-being and social well-being and contributed to reducing individual depression. However, the preventative health behavior involved in social distancing was not conducive to emotional well-being or social well-being. Affective elements are related to individual behaviors. Therefore, the use of prosocial, altruistic language may play an important role with respect to encouraging people to comply with preventative health behaviors in the context of COVID-19. In addition, it is worth noting that different preventative health behaviors may have different effects on people's mental health, especially when implementing social distancing-related epidemic mitigation behaviors. The question of how to prevent negative psychological effects in restricted actors must be answered, and the degree of life satisfaction experienced by those actors must also be taken into account.

Content analysis of COVID-19 rumors

Objectives: This study provided a basis for the public to evaluate numerous sources of COVID-19 information to mitigate the harm caused by the repeated dissemination and sharing of misinformation. Methods: Content analysis was used to examine the spread of COVID-19 rumors on the Internet. The content characteristics and expressions of 113 COVID-19 rumors collected from the "Taiwan Fact Checking Center" website were used as samples for analysis. Results: The most common type of COVID-19 rumor was "aggressive," and "a particular behavior" and "specific type of food or appliance" were the most common objects of the rumors. The dates of occurrence were not clearly noted, but the contents of more than half of the rumors were accurately described. The main purposes were primarily "attention/warning" and "sharing new knowledge." These rumors mostly originated from the Internet, and the rumors were corroborated primarily by "photos/icons/videos" and "experts." Conclusions: The content analysis results of the COVID-19 rumors could enhance the public's basic awareness and ability to identify false COVID-19 rumors and to encourage social media users to be more vigilant against the spread of disinformation.

Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) toward COVID-19 Pandemic among the Public in Taiwan: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Purpose: Knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) models are often used by researchers in the field of public health to explore people's healthy behaviors. Therefore, this study mainly explored the relationships among participants' sociodemographic status, COVID-19 knowledge, affective attitudes, and preventive behaviors. Method: This study adopted an online survey, involving a total of 136 males and 204 females, and used a cross-sectional study to investigate the relationships between variables including gender, age, COVID-19 knowledge, positive affective attitudes (emotional wellbeing, psychological wellbeing, and social wellbeing), negative affective attitudes (negative self-perception and negative perceptions of life), and preventive behaviors (hygiene habits, reducing public activities, and helping others to prevent the epidemic). Results: The majority of participants in the study were knowledgeable about COVID-19. The mean COVID-19 knowledge score was 12.86 (SD = 1.34, range: 7-15 with a full score of 15), indicating a high level of knowledge. However, the key to decide whether participants adopt COVID-19 preventive behaviors was mainly their affective attitudes, especially positive affective attitudes (ß = 0.18-0.25, p< 0.01), rather than COVID-19 disease knowledge (ß = -0.01-0.08, p > 0.05). In addition, the sociodemographic status of the participants revealed obvious differences in the preventive behaviors; females had better preventive behaviors than males such as cooperating with the epidemic prevention hygiene habits (t = -5.08, p< 0.01), reducing public activities (t = -3.00, p< 0.01), and helping others to prevent the epidemic (t = -1.97, p< 0.05), while the older participants were more inclined to adopt preventive behaviors including epidemic prevention hygiene habits (ß = 0.18, p = 0.001, R2 = 0.03), reducing public activities (ß = 0.35, p< 0.001, R2 = 0.13), and helping others to prevent the epidemic (ß = 0.27, p< 0.001, R2 = 0.07). Conclusions: Having adequate COVID-19 knowledge was not linked to higher involvement in precautionary behaviors. Attitudes toward COVID-19 may play a more critical function in prompting individuals to undertake preventive behaviors, and different positive affective attitudes had different predictive relationships with preventive behaviors.

The Relationships among Anxiety, Subjective Well-Being, Media Consumption, and Safety-Seeking Behaviors during the COVID-19 Epidemic.

The COVID-19 epidemic has been confirmed as the largest scale outbreak of atypical pneumonia since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and it has become a public health emergency of international concern. It exacerbated public confusion and anxiety, and the impact of COVID-19 on people needs to be better understood. Indeed, prior studies that conducted meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort research compared mental health before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic and proved that public health polices (e.g., city lockdowns, quarantines, avoiding gatherings, etc.) and COVID-19-related information that circulates on new media platforms directly affected citizen's mental health and well-being. Hence, this research aims to explore Taiwanese people's health status, anxiety, media sources for obtaining COVID-19 information, subjective well-being, and safety-seeking behavior during the COVID-19 epidemic and how they are associated. Online surveys were conducted through new media platforms, and 342 responses were included in the analysis. The research results indicate that the participants experienced different aspects of COVID-19 anxiety, including COVID-19 worry and perceived COVID-19 risk. Among the given media sources, the more participants searched for COVID-19 information on new media, the greater they worried about COVID-19. Furthermore, COVID-19 worry was positively related to safety-seeking behavior, while perceived COVID-19 risk was negatively related to subjective well-being. This paper concludes by offering some suggestions for future studies and pointing out limitations of the present study.

New Media Literacy, Health Status, Anxiety, and Preventative Behaviors Related to COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Study in Taiwan.

Internet media may exacerbate public confusion and anxiety about COVID-19. New media health literacy (NMHL) is considered to play a protective role against health-related misinformation from the media for individuals to maintain their health. The current study aims to examine the relationship among Taiwanese adults' NMHL, health status, anxiety, and prevention behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional study was conducted through an online survey, and 342 responses were included in the analysis. The survey tools include Health Status, COVID-19-Related New Media Health Literacy, COVID-19 Anxiety, and COVID-19 Preventive Behaviors. The research showed that both functional and critical prosuming literacy had positive relationships with health status. Functional consumption literacy had a weak negative correlation with COVID-19 anxiety. Furthermore, critical consumption literacy had a positive relationship with COVID-19 preventive behaviors. Therefore, individuals' health, anxiety, and prevention behaviors are affected by different aspects of COVID-19-related new media health literacy. Compared to their consuming media literacy, Taiwanese adults have insufficient prosuming media literacy in regard to COVID-19 health issues.