Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Dec 15, 2021
Date Accepted: Sep 26, 2022
Date Submitted to PubMed: Nov 8, 2022
Fear of COVID-19 and Prevention Behaviors: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth conversations about behavioral-change fear appeals. While fear is hypothesized as health-promoting in theories of health behavior, little research has rigorously assessed the relationship.
Objective:
We aim to assess the directionality of the association between fear of COVID-19 and COVID-19 prevention behaviors, if present.
Methods:
The [Blinded for Review] study, a web-based survey of U.S. women’s COVID-19 experiences, was deployed in May-June 2020 with follow-up in December 2020-January 2021 (N=200). Fear of COVID-19 and COVID-19 prevention behaviors (staying home except for essential activities, physical distancing in public, masking in public) were measured. Cross-lagged panel analysis (CLPA), a type of structural equation modeling that assesses directionality of temporal associations, was employed to understand relationships, if any, between variables of interest.
Results:
We found cross-sectional associations between fear of COVID-19 and staying home and physical distancing; however, results of CLPA indicate no causal relationship between fear of COVID-19 and COVID-19 prevention behaviors six months apart.
Conclusions:
Promotion of COVID-19 prevention behaviors, and other health behavior, should not rely on fear appeals.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.