Predictors of adherence in Austrian employees during the COVID-19 pandemic: results of an online survey

Alexander Avian; Clemens Könczöl; Bettina Kubicek; Ulrike Spary-Kainz; Andrea Siebenhofer

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2024.1347818

Predictors of adherence in Austrian employees during the COVID-19 pandemic: results of an online survey

Front Public Health. 2024 Mar 1:12:1347818. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1347818. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Alexander Avian¹, Clemens Könczöl², Bettina Kubicek², Ulrike Spary-Kainz³, Andrea Siebenhofer^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Medical Informatics, and Statistics and Documentation, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
² Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
³ Institute of General Practice and Evidence-based Health Services Research, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
⁴ Institute of General Practice, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Abstract

Background: Since the beginning of the pandemic in December 2019, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been a significant challenge to health care systems throughout the world. The introduction of measures to reduce the incidence of infection had a significant impact on the workplace. Overall, companies played a key and adaptive role in coping with the pandemic.

Methods: Cross-sectional data from an online-survey of 1,183 employees conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2021 in Austria were used in the analyses. The influence of health beliefs (e.g., perceived severity), modifying factors (e.g., age) and time-dependent factors (e.g., corona fatigue) on individual adherence were evaluated. The conception of the questionnaire was based on the health belief model.

Results: The majority of respondents were female (58.3%), worked in companies with more than 250 employees (56.6%) and had been to an academic secondary school or had a university degree (58.3%). Overall, employees were adherent to most of the measures at their company (>80%), except for wearing FFP-2 masks when they were travelling in a car with coworkers (59.3, 95%CI 51.3-66.7%). Overall adherence was associated with high ratings for the meaningfulness of testing (OR: 2.06 95%CI: 1.00-4.22; p = 0.049), the extent to which social norms govern behavior (OR: 6.61 95%CI: 4.66-9.36; p < 0.001), lower perceived difficulties associated with the adoption of health-promoting measures (OR: 0.37 95%CI: 0.16-0.82; p = 0.015) and lower corona fatigue (OR: 0.23 95%CI: 0.10-0.52; p < 0.001). Adherence to four single measures was influenced by different predictors. The most important predictors (important for the adherence to three out of four single measures) were social norms and corona fatigue.

Conclusion: The importance attached to testing and social norms, as well as lower perceived barriers to health-promoting measures and low levels of corona fatigue all increase overall adherence to Covid-19 protective measures in companies. Strategies to improve adherence should be adapted depending on the aim (to raise overall adherence or adherence to individual measures) and on the group of persons that is being targeted.

Keywords: COVID-19; adherence; barriers to health-promoting measures; corona fatigue; employees; health belief model; online-survey; social norms.

MeSH terms

Austria / epidemiology
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Cross-Sectional Studies
Female
Humans
Male
Pandemics
SARS-CoV-2
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The study was funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection.