Perception of COVID-19 Physical Distancing Effectiveness and Contagiousness of Asymptomatic Individuals: Cross-sectional Survey of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Adults in the United States.
J Med Internet Res
; 23(2): e21103, 2021 02 25.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1575226
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapid increase in the amount of information about the disease and SARS-CoV-2 on the internet. If the language used in video messages is not clear or understandable to deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people with a high school degree or less, this can cause confusion and result in information gaps among DHH people during a health emergency.OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between DHH people's perception of the effectiveness of physical distancing and contagiousness of an asymptomatic person.METHODS:
This is a cross-sectional survey study on DHH people's perceptions about COVID-19 (N=475). Items pertaining to COVID-19 knowledge were administered to US deaf adults from April 17, 2020, to May 1, 2020, via a bilingual American Sign Language/English online survey platform.RESULTS:
The sample consisted of 475 DHH adults aged 18-88 years old, with 74% (n=352) identifying as White and 54% (n=256) as female. About 88% (n=418) of the sample felt they knew most things or a lot about physical distancing. This figure dropped to 72% (n=342) for the question about the effectiveness of physical distancing in reducing the spread of COVID-19 and 70% (n=333) for the question about the contagiousness of an infected person without symptoms. Education and a knowledge of the effectiveness of physical distancing significantly predicted knowledge about the contagiousness of an asymptomatic individual. Race, gender, and age did not emerge as significant predictors.CONCLUSIONS:
This results of this study point to the strong connection between education and coronavirus-related knowledge. Education-related disparities can be remedied by making information fully accessible and easily understood during emergencies and pandemics.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Disease Transmission, Infectious
/
Persons With Hearing Impairments
/
Physical Distancing
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
/
Young adult
Country/Region as subject:
North America
Language:
English
Journal:
J Med Internet Res
Journal subject:
Medical Informatics
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
21103
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