Predictors of adherence in Austrian employees during the COVID-19 pandemic: results of an online survey

• Published in: Frontiers in public health 2024-03, Vol.12, p.1347818-1347818
• Main Authors: Avian, Alexander, Könczöl, Clemens, Kubicek, Bettina, Spary-Kainz, Ulrike, Siebenhofer, Andrea
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: adherence; Austria - epidemiology; corona fatigue; COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; Cross-Sectional Studies; employees; Female; health belief model; Humans; Male; Pandemics; SARS-CoV-2; social norms; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 2296-2565; 2296-2565
• DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1347818

Since the beginning of the pandemic in December 2019, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been a significant challenge to health care systems throughout the world. The introduction of measures to reduce the incidence of infection had a significant impact on the workplace. Overall, companies played a key and adaptive role in coping with the pandemic. Cross-sectional data from an online-survey of 1,183 employees conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2021 in Austria were used in the analyses. The influence of health beliefs (e.g., perceived severity), modifying factors (e.g., age) and time-dependent factors (e.g., corona fatigue) on individual adherence were evaluated. The conception of the questionnaire was based on the health belief model. The majority of respondents were female (58.3%), worked in companies with more than 250 employees (56.6%) and had been to an academic secondary school or had a university degree (58.3%). Overall, employees were adherent to most of the measures at their company (>80%), except for wearing FFP-2 masks when they were travelling in a car with coworkers (59.3, 95%CI 51.3-66.7%). Overall adherence was associated with high ratings for the meaningfulness of testing (OR: 2.06 95%CI: 1.00-4.22;  = 0.049), the extent to which social norms govern behavior (OR: 6.61 95%CI: 4.66-9.36;