More than just a mental stressor: psychological value of social distancing in COVID-19 mitigation through increased risk perception-a preliminary study in China.

ABSTRACT: Social distancing is an effective measure to prevent epidemic infections during a pandemic outbreak, but its psychological value in COVID-19 pandemic mitigation remained less detected. Our study fills this gap by conducting a nationwide survey in China between 12 and 25 February (2020), and a follow-up survey targeting the same participants between 25 and 28 March (2020). We have discovered that perceived increased time staying at home, a subjective agency for social distancing, positively predicts not only risk perception of COVID-19 epidemic at the outbreak and eased stage, but also predicts subjective controllability of COVID-19 epidemic at the eased stage. Given that risk perception indicates potential active engagement of preventative behavior and that subjective controllability assoc

SUBMITTER: Gong Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8593396 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature