If you're the type of person who always has hand sanitizer in your bag and car and who is constantly wiping down every surface in your house even before the current health pandemic you're ahead of the curve when it comes to safer hygiene practices. The coronavirus health pandemic is far from over and that means that wearing masks and frequent hand washing are just two of the ways people can keep themselves protected. With a vaccine still not available, people must be vigilant when it comes to keeping themselves safe and healthy during these unprecedented times. A new study is showing that people who have a germ theory of disease and are germaphobes are doing better when it comes to practicing COVID-19 hygiene than others.
The study from UCONN school of nursing researchers, published in the journal PLOS ONE found that those who had "pathogen disgust" and were already protecting themselves from germs were more concerned with the health implications of the coronavirus and were more likely to practice COVID hygiene such as proper handwashing and sanitizing and disinfecting of their environment.
“When we feel disgust toward something, our behavioral response is to avoid it and get away from it, but people vary in their experience of disgust,” Natalie J. Shook, the principal investigator for the study said, according to UCONN Today. “In thinking about these psychological processes, what we’re interested in is whether people who are already more sensitive to potential disease threats are then more inclined to follow prescribed preventative health behaviors.”
The researchers studied approximately 1000 people across the country from a variety of demographics who were surveyed about their feelings on the pandemic as well as how they personally practiced COVID-19 safety in their daily behavior. They were asked if they practiced social distancing, if they wore face masks and avoided touching their face, how often they washed their hands, and how they were cleaning and disinfecting during the health crisis.
“What we found in our data set was that the most consistent predictors of concern about COVID and then engagement in preventative health behaviors are actually those psychological disease avoidance factors,” Shook explained. She also explained that just because certain people were more concerned about the virus didn't mean that they were doing more to prevent getting it.
“Older participants reported more concern about COVID, which makes sense – they’re at higher risk,” Shook reported. “But when we looked at preventative health behaviors, we weren’t necessarily seeing that older adults were engaging more in preventative health behaviors. So, where there was the concern, that wasn’t necessarily translating into the behaviors that could protect them.”
Although age, political stance, religious views and the perceived threat of the illness were all factors that people listed as a reason for practicing this preventative healthcare behavior, "individuals who indicated strong feelings of germ aversion and pathogen disgust also reported greater concern for COVID-19 and increased participation in preventative behaviors."
“We took a really broad approach to looking at the different factors that are related to different preventative health behaviors,” Shook said. “The fact we are seeing psychological disease avoidance variables as coming out more consistently – which conceptually was not surprising, that’s what they should be doing, but that we’re seeing those above and beyond traditional personality traits and demographics – I think might speak to something we could potentially tap into.”