Risk perception predicts post-traumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic in China: the mediation effect of engaging in health-protective behaviors

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the public to enormous health risks and induced wide-ranging impacts on people’s mental health. Post-traumatic growth is a possible psychological benefits that may occur during struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic. This research explored 1) demographics differences on risk perception of COVID-19 pandemic, engagement in health-protective behavior and post-traumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic; and 2) the mediation effect of engaging in health-protective behaviors between risk perception and post-traumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Females showed a significant higher level of engagement in health-protective behaviors. People who were married reported a significantly higher level of risk perception, engagement in health-protective behavior and post-traumatic growth than those who were in other marital status (i.e. single, divorced, widowed). People who had acquaintances being infected with COVID-19 reported significant higher level of risk perception and engagement in health-protective behaviors. Engagement in health-protective behaviors mediated the relationship between risk perception and post-traumatic growth. Implications of the results for public health interventions are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Risk perception
• health-protective behaviors
• posttraumatic growth
• COVID-19
• mental health

Acknowledgments

We thank the participants for their participation in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities; the Hundred Talents Program Research Initiation Fund from Zhejiang University; Leading Innovative and Entrepreneur Team Introduction Program of Zhejiang (2019R01007); the Key Laboratory of Intelligent Preventive Medicine of Zhejiang Province (2020E10004).