Influence of trust on two different risk perceptions as an affective and cognitive dimension during Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) outbreak in South Korea: serial cross-sectional surveys

Jang, Won Mo; Kim, Un-Na; Jang, Deok Hyun; Jung, Hyemin; Cho, Sanghyun; Eun, Sang Jun; Lee, Jin Yong

Questions about cognitive perception were included since the survey 2. Cognitive risk perception proportion was defined as the number of participants whose response was "will spread further" by the number of eligible respondents. Trust in government was assessed using presidential job approval rating. Trust in government includes expectations of government`s competence to prevent people from risk and develop and implement follow-up measures. 31 It can be termed this trust concept as competence-based trust. 32 33 We tried to assess the competence-based trust using presidential job approval rating. Presidential job approval was evaluated using the question "Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Park Geunhye is handling her job as president?" and required the following responses: "approval", "disapproval". The development of questionnaires on risk perception and trust in the government had not gone through a valid procedure due to the urgency of the outbreak. We also imposed survey items on existing questionnaire developed by Gallup Korea, an affiliation of Gallup International.