Lay People’s View and Responses to the Pandemic: Perceptions of COVID-19 and Personal Health Responses in China

Abstract

The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic is an emerging, rapidly evolving situation. This study aims to investigate Chinese people s perceptions of COVID-19 and its effects on varied responses to take public health precautions and self-reported protective measures. The survey data were collected from 565 Chinese respondents online from January 25, 2020, to February 4, 2020. Respondents reported a highly perceived risk, knowledge, and self-efficacy associated with the spread of pandemic, and a strong agreement on public health precaution. The more possibilities pneumonia caused by COVID-19 was perceived as severe disease, the more chances public health precautions were taken, but intentions to take self-reported protective measures decreased. Neither infection risk of family member nor full awareness of increasing number of cases had any significant effect on respondents decision to take personal health responses, suggesting urgent needs to offer health advice to those who deliberately ignore infection risk.