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

However, given that some hierarchy-specific trends in income level were observed in the overall model of personal-level risk perception, these results might be due to the limited number of study participants Those who did not support the president, or the ruling party were reported to have had higher risk perception in both the personal and societal levels. In the group that did not approve of the president, the probabilities of risk perception were higher at the individual-level than at the societal-level, but not for the party identification. In the early days of the MERS-COV outbreak, the government did not specify details regarding scientifically uncertain information in order to reduce public anxiety over the crisis, nor did the government disclose which hospitals the confirmed patients had visited. This resulted in increased public distrust in the government. 12 13 Similar pattern of distrust in the government was associated with the spread of infection, during the outbreak of Ebola. 28 29 This study, which used a serial cross-sectional study design had some limitations. First, the study used a cross-sectional study design. Thus, causal relations between personal characteristics and risk perceptions could not be determined-rather, it could only suggest their relevance. Particularly, it was difficult to consider that presidential approval rating and party identification would actually lead to greater risk perception. Nevertheless, consecutive crosssectional surveys may be a better option than a single cross-sectional survey. Second, this study could not evaluate the intensity of risk perception, because it only included questions focusing on whether or not participants recognized the risk at the different levels. It would be useful to