Preventive behaviors by the level of perceived infection sensitivity during the Korea outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in 2015

Lee, Soon Young; Yang, Hee Jeong; Kim, Gawon; Cheong, Hae-Kwan; Choi, Bo Youl

The four questions under perceived infection sensitivity were "Worried about being infected by MERS"; "Worried about death due to worsened health status if infected by MERS"; "Worried about MERS infection of children, the elderly or patients with chronic disease in family"; and "Worried that the nationwide epidemic of MERS will cause socioeconomic chaos." Scores were given from one point for the least concern, to 5-point for the highest concern. Response indices to the outbreak were stress during the outbreak period, attitude toward preventive behaviors (reliability/practice of preventive behaviors and hand washing practice), and policy credibility. Stress perception during the outbreak period was measured on a 4-point scale, in which those who responded with "greatly high" or "high" were classified into the high stress level group. Each of the indices of reliability and practice of preventive behaviors was evaluated on a 5-point scale with seven questions that were selected based on the MERS preventive guidelines from the KCDC, in which those whose mean scores were at least 4-point were classified into the reliability group or the practice group. Hand washing was evaluated on a scale of 1-4, with four questions, in which those whose mean scores were at least three points were classified into the practice of hand washing group. Policy credibility was also measured on a scale of 1-5, with four questions, in which those whose mean scores were at least 4-point were classified into the policy credibility group (Appendix 1).