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During the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the Pakistan government’s precautionary policies, people are not practicing the standard preventive measures. People need to change their health behaviors to control the transmission of the disease. The purpose of this study is to assess the willingness of people in Rawalpindi city to change/adapt their health behaviors during the pandemic and to associate this willingness with their various demographic variables during the pandemic. Willingness was determined through respondents’ knowledge, risk perceptions, attitudes, and practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The main objectives of this study are to assess the general population’s willingness to change their health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in Rawalpindi city, Pakistan, and to determine the association between demographic variables and the willingness to change health behaviors.
A cross-sectional study was conducted in Rawalpindi city, Pakistan. A community household survey was conducted in 4 randomly selected union councils of Rawalpindi city. The survey was done via the systemic sampling of the households. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection, and it was made based on the guidelines of the National Institute of Health, Pakistan. It comprises 66 questions consisting of 5 sections. A Cronbach α of .92 was calculated with SPSS (IBM Corporation).
The results of the study showed that 89.2% of the respondents showed a willingness to change their health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. A chi-square test of association revealed that 7 demographic characteristics were statistically significant, including age, gender, marital status, income, occupation, number of children, and the diagnosed comorbidities of respondents. A regression analysis showed that the monthly income of the respondents was the true predictor, with an odds ratio of 8.69.
The respondents with higher scores for knowledge, risk perceptions, attitudes, and practices during the COVID-19 pandemic showed a high willingness to change their health behaviors in Rawalpindi city, Pakistan.
Willingness to change health behaviors during Covid-19 pandemic in the population of Rawalpindi City, Pakistan.