(68) Associations between Demographic Characteristics, Perceived Threat, Perceived Stress, Coping Responses and Adherence to COVID-19 Prevention Measures among Chinese Healthcare Students

Dr. Anson Chui Yan TANG¹, Prof. Enid Wai-Yung KWONG², Dr. Liang-Ying CHEN², Dr Winnie Lai-Sheung CHENG^1
1School of Nursing, Tung Wah College, Hong Kong SAR, ²School of Nursing, Putian College, Putian, China

Objectives
To investigate the associations between demographic characteristics, perceived threat, perceived stress, coping responses and adherence to infection control measures for COVID-19 pandemic in Chinese healthcare students using path analysis.

Method
It was a cross-sectional survey collecting data in Hong Kong and Fujian Province of China. A convenience and snowball sample of 2706 students aged 18 years or older and studying a healthcare programme in universities/tertiary education institutions were recruited. The participants completed self-report questionnaires which included items about demographic information and scales to measure perceived stress, perceived threat, wishful thinking and empathetic responding, and compliance to social distancing and personal hygiene measures, via online platform in April 2020. AMOS 23 was used to perform the path analysis. P-value of < 0.05 was considered as statistical significance.

Results
The participants reported high compliances to both social distancing and personal hygiene measures. The confidence to manage the threat, wishful thinking and empathetic responding directly associated with compliance to social distancing (β=-0.31, p<0.001; β=0.35, p=0.015; β=0.33, p<0.001 respectively) and personal hygiene measures (β==-0.16, p<0.001; β=0.21, p<0.001; β=0.16, p<0.001 respectively). Gender, geographical location, and clinical experience were the only three demographic variables having direct and/or indirect effects on the two outcomes. The final model constructed demonstrated a very good fit to the data (Chi-square X2=27.27, df=17, P=0.044; X2/df=1.61; GFI=0.998, CFI=0.997, TLI=0.992, RMSEA=0.015).

Conclusion
The predictive model constructed in this study is the first one to delineate contributory factors of compliance to infection control measures in healthcare students amid the COVID-19 outbreak.  The findings suggest that students who are male, habituate in Hong Kong, have clinical experience and weak confidence to manage the threat tend to have lower compliances to social distancing and personal hygiene measures. Wishful thinking, contrasting with previous studies, was first found to positively associate with adherence to COVID-19 control measures. 

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