Initial psychological responses to Influenza A, H1N1 (""Swine flu"")

Goodwin, Robin; Haque, Shamsul; Neto, Felix; Myers, Lynn B

Following ethical approval by the relevant University ethics boards in London and Malaysia, data was collected from a total of 328 respondents (mean age 31.2, SD 13.37, 62% female). A paper version of the questionnaire was distributed in Malaysia, with students recruiting 180 respondents from their own classes, and community members from residential areas and local offices in Kuala Lumpur (age range 18-70, mean age 29.0 (SD 13.36), 59% female)). Response rate was generally good, with 180 out of 200 approached to participate (90%) completing the questionnaire. In Europe, data was collected between 30 th April and 6 th May 2009 from 158 respondents (age range 18-69, mean age 33.9, SD 12.8, 68% female) via an online questionnaire in English or Portuguese, linked to the website http://www.swinefluques tionnaire.com. The website link was pasted onto a variety of general, non-health networking websites (e.g. 'I love London'). Respondents were primarily from the UK and Portugal but also included 30 respondents living outside these countries and resident in Finland (19 respondents), Poland (6 respondents), Malta (3 respondents) and France (2 respondents). Ten non-European based residents were then removed from the online survey before analysis.