Information Resources Trust and Self-care Behaviors in Prevention of COVID-19 Among Health Workers in Gonabad City, Iran

Today, information resources play a paramount importance role in providing information and public awareness. COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease and general precautions and identifying the factors influencing the self-care behaviors play an important role in the prevention of the disease. This study aimed to assess the relationship between trust in information resources and self-care behaviors in the prevention of COVID-19 on faculty members, staff, or students of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences.

This was an analytical cross-sectional study, conducted on 192 faculty members, staff, or students of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences between May and April 2020. The sampling method was census. We used a valid and reliable questionnaire to assess our goals. Data on demographic variables, information resources trust and self-care behaviors to them were collected using online self-administered questionnaires. Data were analyzed using SPSS software v. 22 and Chi-square test and Pearson correlation coefficient.

In this study, 60.2% of the subjects were male. The Mean±SD age was 24.18±7.97 years (ranged: 18-59). The highest levels of trust in the information resources about COVID-19 were related to articles (37.8%) and faculty information (22.2%), and the lowest ones were related to national media (27.3%) and satellite channels (25.5%). The quality of self-care behavior in females was significantly higher than males (P=0.018). There was no significant relationship between the level of trust in any of the information resources and the quality of self-care behaviors in the prevention of COVID-19 (P>0.05).

According to the results of this study, there was no significant relationship between the level of trust in information resources and the quality of self-care behaviors to prevent COVID-19 and further investigations are needed to find possible associated factors.