Psychological responses, behavioral changes and public perceptions during the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in China: a population based cross-sectional survey

Mengcen Qian; Qianhui Wu; Peng Wu; Zhiyuan Hou; Yuxia Liang; Benjamin J Cowling; Hongjie Yu

In total 401 (78.6%) Wuhan participants and 320 (63.9%) Shanghai participants engaged in all six recommended and avoidance behaviors due to the novel coronavirus outbreak (Panel B Table 2 ). A high compliance rate of above 90% was observed in all other behaviors in both samples, except for increased surface cleaning, which was driving the significant observed differences in behavioral responses between the two cities (Table S1 ). Frequencies of washing hands immediately when returning home, wearing a face mask when going out, and duration of handwashing significantly increased in both cities during the outbreak (Panel B Table 2 ; Figure 2 ). We found no statistically significant differences in changes of the first two aforementioned behaviors. By contrast, more respondents reported longer duration of handwashing in Wuhan (p<0.001). Moreover, a significantly higher proportion of Wuhan respondents reported purchasing or trying to purchase goggles for prevention purpose (p=0.009).