Did healthy life awareness affect the behavioral or cognitive avoidance attitude from COVID-19? An observational study.

Abstract

This study purposed to evaluate the healthy life awareness (HLA) level versus the COVID-19 avoidance attitudes. A single-centered observational study was conducted in the Family Medicine Clinics of a tertiary hospital between April 30, 2021 and July 30, 2021. The HLA scale was used to determine the participants' HLA levels. In addition, the avoidance attitudes from the COVID-19 scale score assessed attitudes toward avoiding COVID-19. Data were analyzed with E-Picos (MediCRES) Statistical Programme. Of the 311 participants aged 30.79 ± 8.37 years, 58.52% (<i>n</i> = 182) were female and 41.48% (<i>n</i> = 129) were male. A negative relationship between the HLA and cognitive avoidance scores (<i>r</i> = -0.255, <i>P</i> < 0.001) and a positive relationship between HLA and behavioral avoidance scores (<i>r</i> = 0.119, <i>P</i> = 0.036) have been indicated. The results of a binary logistic regression, taking the presence of a higher HLA score as the dependent variable, have shown that high awareness was observed in women, approximately 1.7 times more than in men [odds ratio (OR): 1.684, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.058-2.696; <i>P</i> = 0.030]. Participants with high HLA had 1.06 times higher behavioral avoidance scores than others (OR: 1.066, 95% CI = 1.012-1.455; <i>P</i> = 0.049). As the cognitive avoidance score increased, the presence of high HLA decreased by nearly 33%. (OR: 0.666, 95% CI = 0.512-0.867; <i>P</i> = 0.002). This study emphasized that a higher HLA was associated with increased behavioral avoidance and decreased cognitive avoidance from COVID-19. HLA has led to doing what needed to be done without being affected by negative discourses.