A longitudinal analysis of adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures, media use, and risk perceptions in a Dutch population-based sample

Abstract

Background Global health crises require large-scale behavior change, with the adoption of preventive health behaviors as a crucial factor in navigating and managing these crises. Much research has been devoted to understanding and predicting preventive health behaviors during infectious disease outbreaks, with media use and risk perception playing a crucial role. However, little attention has been paid to how these complex and dynamic behaviors and perceptions relate and evolve over time.Aims This study aimed to assess the longitudinal relationships between media use, risk perception, and adherence to preventive measures during the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods We conducted a pre-registered four-wave panel study among a representative sample of the Dutch population (N = 1166). We performed four random intercept cross-lagged panel models to assess between-person correlations between media use, risk perception, and adherence as well as within-person effects of media use and risk perception on adherence and changes within these variables over time.Results Media use and risk perception generally varied across time points, whereas adherence was generally stable over time. As expected, higher risk perception was related to higher adherence levels. Media use and risk perception were not correlated, except for use of online news sources. Although media use was generally positively associated with adherence, social media use was not significantly associated with adherence. Nuanced within-person changes also suggested that increased adherence led to decreased risk perception over time, while such decreased risk perception led to declined adherence to preventive measures at a later point in time. Nonetheless, there were only a few small longitudinal effects of media use and risk perception on adherence at the within-person level.Discussion Although our results mostly revealed differences in media use, risk perception, and adherence between people, temporal changes within people occurred as well. Health interventions could adopt a time-sensitive approach to communicating health risks and use different media strategies to address changing information needs in times of crisis.

Keywords

• Adherence
• risk perception
• media use
• longitudinal data
• COVID-19
• preventive measures