Background: COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome. WHO declared that the COVID-19 outbreak is a global pandemic. Predictive factors for participating in preventative behavior could be extremely helpful in improving people's health. Health belief model has a good ability for predicting and explaining COVID-19-related behavior.
Objective: To evaluate the perception based on the health belief model (HBM) regarding COVID-19, practice of preventive behavior, and identify the predictors to adopt preventive behavior among sample of Egyptian population.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using among 805 participants aged 18 years or more. The online questionnaire was conducted from 1 August 2020 to the 30 December 2020.
Results: A total of 805 participants (mean age of 30.63±10.06 years, 53.8% females) completed questionnaire. 77.3% scored a high level of practicing preventive behavior. Preventive behavior practice had significant positive correlation with perceived susceptibility(r=0.28), perceived severity(r=0.21), perceived benefits(r=0.41), cues to actions(r=0.41), self-efficacy(r=0.51), and a significant negative correlation (r=-0.32) with perceived barriers. The regression analysis indicated that male gender (β = − 0.79), perceived susceptibility (β = 0.36), perceived benefits (β = 0.33), perceived barriers (β = − 0.14), self-efficacy (β = 1.85), cues to action (β = 0.61) were significantly associated with COVID-19 Preventive behavior practice (p < 0.05).
Conclusion: Most participants showed a high degree of COVID-19 perception (based on HBM) and preventive behavior practice. Designing a health educational intervention based on HBM constructs is recommended to enhance adherence to the preventive behavior.