Influenza pandemic preparedness: motivation for protection among small and medium businesses in Australia

Watkins, Rochelle E; Cooke, Feonagh C; Donovan, Robert J; MacIntyre, C Raina; Itzwerth, Ralf; Plant, Aileen J

Due to the cross-sectional study design we are limited in the type of conclusions that we can draw about causality based on the associations observed. For example, having prepared a pandemic influenza plan is likely to result in improved levels of coping appraisal. However, experimental research [24] has provided support for the impact of beliefs on protection motivation and current behaviour. The associations found in this study explained a low proportion of variance in preparedness behaviour, although the magnitude of the associations found is similar to those reported for protection motivation theory concepts and other health-related behaviours [24, 25] . Several factors could have contributed to the low explanatory power in the present study, including the assessment of a limited number of theory-based belief constructs, the use of single-item and thus limited operationalisations of the key belief and outcome variables which have unknown reliability, and the use of dichotomous indicators due to the small sample size. Also we did not assess behavioural intentions. Further work is required to extend the scope of this study and considered other relevant constructs including social norms and response costs.