Predictors of Compliance to COVID-19 Containment Communications in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, Enugu, and Lagos States

Abstract

The difficulty in understanding new virus strains affects scientific efforts to immediately develop drugs and vaccines to stem the spread of viral diseases. As a result, social measures remain handy tools to address viral diseases. Nigeria joined the rest of the world to introduce social containment measures for the new COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines the factors predicting adherence to COVID-19 containment measures in selected Nigerian communities. It adopts multi-stage cluster sampling in a survey involving 183 respondents from two states and Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Multiple regression and descriptive statistics were used to estimate the influences of social factors (religion, family, friends), demographic characteristics (age, residential area, gender), and credibility factors (perceived trust, ease of adherence) on attitudes toward media messages and social measures on COVID-19 prevention guidelines. Results show that age, gender, marital status, type of street, education, and state of residence have significant influence on adherence to COVID-19 messages. While age and gender positively correlated with credibility assessment, type of street was negatively associated with credibility assessment of COVID-19 messages. Social factors have more predictive influence on adherence to COVID-19 messages than credibility assessment of COVID-19 messages. The study discusses the implications of relationships between demographic factors and adherence to COVID-19 messages.