Investigating the Predictive Factors of Protective Behaviors Against COVID-19 among Bank Employees

COVID-19 is one of the most dangerous pandemics of the 21st century, which has caused disease in humans and has had various consequences for humans. One of the most at-risk groups are bank employees. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the predictors of protective behaviors against COVID-19 in bank employees of Sirjan.

This descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was conducted in 2020 in Sirjan. The participants in this study were 280 bank employees who were selected randomly. The data collection tool was a questionnaire in three sections, including demographic information, knowledge, and questions related to the Protection Motivation Theory, which was self administered. After collecting the data, descriptive tests (frequency and percentage), Pearson correlation and linear regression were used to analyze the data in SPSS 23.

The mean age of participants was 41.6±2.16 years. The results of correlation coefficients showed that there was a significant correlation between perceived susceptibilityand perceived severity. However, it should be noted that there were positive correlations between protection motivation with perceived susceptibility (r = .414, P <0.001), perceived severity (r = .354, P <0.001), response efficiency(r =. 411, P <0.001), self-efficacy (r = .508, P <0.001), and fear (r = .484, P <0.001),; and negative correlations between response costwith rewards (r = -. 104, P = <0.05) and response cost(r = -. 237, P = 0.002) . According to the linear regression test, 0.585 percent of protection motivation was predicted by perceived susceptibility and severity, response efficiency, self-efficacy, fear, among which the role of perceived fear (β = 0.28) was stronger than other variables.

The results of this study showed the effectiveness of the application of the protection motivation theory in predicting the behaviors for preventingCOVID-19. Therefore, these structures, especially the perceived fear structure can be used in the development of educational programs and intervention techniques to change the attitude and behavior of bank employees.