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The four weeks before lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: a weekly serial cross-sectional survey on risk perceptions, knowledge, public trust and behaviour, 3 to 25 March 2020
- Cornelia Betsch1 , Lars Korn1,2 , Tanja Burgard3 , Wolfgang Gaissmaier4 , Lisa Felgendreff1 , Sarah Eitze1 , Philipp Sprengholz1 , Robert Böhm5,6 , Volker Stollorz7 , Michael Ramharter8 , Nikolai Promies9 , Freia De Bock10 , Philipp Schmid1 , Britta Renner4 , Lothar H Wieler11 , Michael Bosnjak11,12
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View Affiliations Hide AffiliationsAffiliations: 1 University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany 2 Department of Implementation Science, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany 3 Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information and Documentation, Trier, Germany 4 University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany 5 University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark 6 Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria 7 Science Media Center Germany gGmbH, Köln, Germany 8 Department of Tropical Medicine, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine and I. Dep. of Medicine University Medical Center, Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany 9 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany 10 Federal Centre for Health Education, Köln, Germany 11 Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany 12 University of Trier, Trier, GermanyCornelia Betschcornelia.betsch uni-erfurt.de
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Citation style for this article: Betsch Cornelia, Korn Lars, Burgard Tanja, Gaissmaier Wolfgang, Felgendreff Lisa, Eitze Sarah, Sprengholz Philipp, Böhm Robert, Stollorz Volker, Ramharter Michael, Promies Nikolai, De Bock Freia, Schmid Philipp, Renner Britta, Wieler Lothar H, Bosnjak Michael. The four weeks before lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: a weekly serial cross-sectional survey on risk perceptions, knowledge, public trust and behaviour, 3 to 25 March 2020. Euro Surveill. 2021;26(42):pii=2001900. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.42.2001900 Received: 05 Nov 2020; Accepted: 17 May 2021
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, public perceptions and behaviours have had to adapt rapidly to new risk scenarios and radical behavioural restrictions.
To identify major drivers of acceptance of protective behaviours during the 4-week transition from virtually no COVID-19 cases to the nationwide lockdown in Germany (3–25 March 2020).
A serial cross-sectional online survey was administered weekly to ca 1,000 unique individuals for four data collection rounds in March 2020 using non-probability quota samples, representative of the German adult population between 18 and 74 years in terms of age × sex and federal state (n = 3,910). Acceptance of restrictions was regressed on sociodemographic variables, time and psychological variables, e.g. trust, risk perceptions, self-efficacy. Extraction of homogenous clusters was based on knowledge and behaviour.
Acceptance of restrictive policies increased with participants’ age and employment in the healthcare sector; cognitive and particularly affective risk perceptions were further significant predictors. Acceptance increased over time, as trust in institutions became more relevant and trust in media became less relevant. The cluster analysis further indicated that having a higher education increased the gap between knowledge and behaviour. Trust in institutions was related to conversion of knowledge into action.
Identifying relevant principles that increase acceptance will remain crucial to the development of strategies that help adjust behaviour to control the pandemic, possibly for years to come. Based on our findings, we provide operational recommendations for health authorities regarding data collection, health communication and outreach.
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