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

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

Our study was a rapid, cross-sectional analysis in response to a particular outbreak, and as such suffers from a number of limitations. Although this research was unique in tracing initial behavioural responses to this pandemic, our respondents were not true random samples in either continent, and we assessed only a small range of potential behaviours. Our Malaysian sample was drawn from one large city -Kuala Lumpur -and may therefore not be representative of other, more rural populations in that country. Similarly, our European data was drawn primarily from the UK and therefore cannot be seen as representative of the whole continent. Self-report biases in questionnaire completion may mean that our respondents were unwilling to provide openly prejudicial responses, whilst our study in Europe was further limited by including only those who had access to the Internet. To fully model likely behavioural changes, and their consequences for public health services, larger, more representative longitudinal studies are now needed to track public anxieties and health behaviours in the continuing battle against pandemic influenzas.