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

Three sets of questions were asked to collect information about preventive behaviors in usual days before 31 December 2019 when an unknown pneumonia outbreak related to the later identified SARS-CoV-2 was firstly reported, and then in the past week. The first two sets of questions regarding the frequency of wearing a face mask when going out and the frequency of handwashing immediately when returning home. Response options were never (scored as 1), rare (2), sometimes (3), usually (4), always (5), or did not go out. The top reasons for wearing a face mask in usual days and in the past week were collected. Respondents who did not always wear a face mask in the past week were also required to provide a most possible reason. The third set of question concerning handwashing duration with five responses categories from short to long (1 score to 5 scores), for less than 10 seconds, [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] seconds, 20-39 seconds, 40-59 seconds, or 60 seconds and above, respectively. Respondents whose answers for behaviors in the past week scored higher than those in usual days were categorized as increased frequency or duration of the aforementioned behaviors. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.