Table of Contents

ABSTRACT

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared SARSCoV2 a pandemic in March 2020. Since then, public health professionals have recommended hygiene-related and avoidance behaviors to curb the number of coronavirus infections. Through the online open access course 12, 234 participants enrolled from 120 countries on “An examination of Coronavirus COVID-19”. The course provided the opportunity to understand the participants’ perceptions and attitudes towards the pandemic. The study aim was also to explore the psychosocial and demographic factors associated with adopting the recommended hygiene-related and avoidance behaviors. Analysis revealed approximately 50% of the course’s participants were ‘somewhat’ concerned about the risk of COVID-19 affecting their health and wellbeing. This evidently proved that there was only moderate concern of the infection which directly contributed towards the attitude and prevention behavior adopted. Through participants discussion posts, trust in government was one of the determining factors for the public to adopt the recommended hygiene-related and avoidance behaviors. Analysis also suggests that an increase in science/health literacy levels was associated with increased adoption of behaviors. 84.9% of participants performed one of the three recommended hygiene-related behaviors and 93.4% performed at least one of three avoidance-related behaviors. Social cognition and health belief model were applicable towards understanding people’s perceptions and the rationale towards their attitudes and ultimately adopting a behavior to control the spread of COVID-19 infections.

Keywords: Pandemic perceptions, attitudes towards health risk, adoption behaviors, avoidance behaviors, COVID-19 avoidance behaviors, COVID-19 health risk behaviors