The Relationship between the Fear, the Perceived Risk of COVID-19 and Compliance with Standard Precautions of Nurses

Aim: it was aimed to examine the correlation between the fear of COVID-19 and the perceived risk of COVID-19 and compliance with standard precautions of nurses working in pandemic clinics. Materials and Methods: The study conducted in a cross-sectional research design. The sample consists of 194 participants who worked in COVID-19 clinics between November 2020 - January 2021 in an Education and Research Hospital in Ankara, and met the inclusion criteria. Data collection form consisted of the Introductory Information Form (18 questions), the The Fear of COVID-19 Scale (7 items), the Perceived COVID-19 Risk Scale (8 items) and the Standard Precautions Scale (20 items). The data were collected by considering the pandemic conditions, using an online questionnaire. Mann Whitney U Test and Kruskal Wallis Variance Analysis were used to compare continuous data. Spearman Correlation Analysis was used to determine the correlation between the scales’ scores. Results: The mean age of the participants was 29.01 ± 6.73. Participants’ mean scores were on the The Fear of COVID-19 Scale, Perceived COVID-19 Risk Scale, and Standard Precautions Scale were 19.83 ± 6.36, 29.89 ± 5, and 14.05 ± 2.81, respectively. It was determined that there was a moderate and positive significant correlation between the The Fear of COVID-19 Scale mean scores of the participants and the Perceived COVID-19 Risk Scale (r = 0.619; p = 0.001). There was no statistically significant correlation between the mean scores of the Compliance with Standard Precautions Scale and the mean scores of the The Fear of COVID-19 Scale and Perceived COVID-19 Risk Scale (p>0.05). Conclusion: In line with the results obtained in the study, it was determined that the nurses’ fear of COVID-19 and the perceived risk of COVID-19 were above average. However, it was revealed that fear of COVID-19 and perceived risk were not related to Compliance with Standard Precautions.