Predicting Compliance with Sanitary Behaviors among Students in Higher Education During the Second COVID-19 Wave: The Role of Health Anxiety and Risk Perception

Sarah Dekeyser; Emilie Schmits; Fabienne Glowacz; Olivier Klein; Mathias Schmitz; Robin Wollast; Vincent Yzerbyt; Olivier Luminet

doi:10.5334/pb.1171

Predicting Compliance with Sanitary Behaviors among Students in Higher Education During the Second COVID-19 Wave: The Role of Health Anxiety and Risk Perception

Psychol Belg. 2023 Jan 5;63(1):1-15. doi: 10.5334/pb.1171. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Sarah Dekeyser¹, Emilie Schmits², Fabienne Glowacz², Olivier Klein³, Mathias Schmitz¹, Robin Wollast¹, Vincent Yzerbyt¹, Olivier Luminet^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Research Institute for Psychological Sciences, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
² Psychologie Clinique de la Délinquance, Unité de Recherche Adaptation, Résilience et Changement, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium.
³ Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
⁴ Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS), Brussels, Belgium.

PMID: 36643577
PMCID: PMC9818048
DOI: 10.5334/pb.1171

Abstract

To limit the spread of COVID-19, public authorities have recommended sanitary behaviors such as handwashing, mask-wearing, physical distancing, and social distancing. We recruited a large sample of higher education students in Belgium (N = 3201-3441) to investigate the role of sociodemographic variables, mental health, previous COVID-19 infections, academic involvement, and risk perception on adherence to these sanitary behaviors. This cross-sectional study took place during the second COVID-19 wave in Belgium, between February and March 2021. Analyses showed that living alone, being female, later in the academic curriculum, having higher general and health anxiety, higher academic involvement, and higher risk perception were positively associated with adherence to the four aforementioned sanitary behaviors. Conversely, previous infection with COVID-19 and having been quarantined were negative predictors. Our results show a set of predictors highly similar for the four sanitary behaviors. We discuss potential initiatives to increase adherence to sanitary behaviors in this group of highly educated youngsters.

Keywords: COVID-19; health anxiety; risk perception; sanitary behaviors; students.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the department of the Secretary of Higher Education for the Wallonia-Brussels Federation of Belgium. This funder had no role in the design, the analysis and interpretation of data, the writing of the report, and the decision to submit this article for publication. This funder only provided support for data collection by contacting universities, graduate colleges and art schools.