The Effect of Nudging on Compliance with Individual Prevention Measures against COVID-19: An Online Experiment on Greek University Students

Nudging has often been suggested as a means to promote health care efficiency and effectiveness by influencing behavior without restricting choice; its usefulness, however, has not been adequately assessed. We examined the effect of an altruistically framed awareness message about the novel coronavirus on the intention to comply with individual prevention measures against infection. A total of 425 Greek postgraduate students, which were randomly assigned into a treatment group and a control group, filled out a questionnaire on compliance and future intention to comply with six preventive measures. The results indicate that the altruistic message did not manage to influence the intention to comply. Moreover, compliance was positively associated with risk perception, whereas women showed both higher compliance and risk perception than men. Vulnerability to the novel coronavirus and a positive vaccination status against it were accompanied by a greater perception of risk, while one's personal history of COVID-19 was associated with a lower intention to comply, lower risk perception, and higher health risk preferences. We conclude that nudging interventions should be evaluated before being adopted in practice, taking into account timing, target groups, and means of communication.