Determination of Effective Factors on Prevention Behaviors for COVID 19 among Employees of hospitals in Hamadan province

health workers are at risk of contracting the disease of COVID-19 and preventive behaviors play an important role in reducing the rate of infection and death from this disease. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the preventive behaviors of contracting COVID-19 and its related factors using the protection motivation theory (PMT) in the hospital employees of Hamadan province. This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in March 2020 on 436 employees working in hospitals covered by Hamadan University of Medical Sciences who were selected by multi-stage random sampling method. The data collection tool was a questionnaire containing contextual variables and protection motivation theory constructs that were designed and psychometrically analyzed in the study of Barati et al. Data were analyzed in Stata 14 statistical software and using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation test and linear regression. The behavior of using a mask (95.2%) was the most frequent and the continuous use of gloves and gowns (49.8%) was the least frequent among health workers. The status of protection motivation theory constructs was evaluated at a relatively favorable level. In total, the various constructs of protection motivation theory explain 42% of the variance of behavioral intention in the studied health workers. Among these, the perceived self-efficacy structure had a significant contribution in explaining the variance of the intention to perform preventive behavior by the subjects under study. Fear-inducing theories were identified as one of the effective factors in promoting preventive behaviors.