COVID-Related Risk-Taking: Measuring Compliance with Public Health Recommendations

Abstract

Introduction: Risk-taking behaviors may manifest in multiple ways, including disregarding public health recommendations. In the context of a pandemic, ignoring those recommendations may have devastating consequences for individuals, households, communities, and the healthcare system. Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a measure of COVID-related risk-taking (CrRT). Methodology: We investigated CrRT in 318 undergraduate students recruited from a Canadian university. With exploratory factor analysis (EFA), we identified a two-factor structure of CrRT: social non-avoidance and personal protection non-compliance, which is consistent with other related studies. Our scale was validated with results from multiple regression analyses showing that younger age, lower risk perception, lower stress, non-planning, and greater risk tolerance significantly predicted public health risk-taking behaviors, also validated by previous work. Results: Results from our study support the CrRT as a valid and reliable measure of pandemic-specific risk-taking. Conclusion: The CrRT may be of use to other researchers and clinicians as this pandemic continues to evolve and new ones occur.