"Don't touch your face"---Effectiveness of a health communication intervention on reducing face-touching behaviors.

Autor: Shi W; Center for Health Communication, Moody College of Communication & Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX. Electronic address: weijia.shi@austin.utexas.edu., Mackert M; Center for Health Communication, Moody College of Communication & Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX; Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations, Moody College of Communication, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX; Department of Population Health, Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX., Kemp D; Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations, Moody College of Communication, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX., King AJ; Department of Communication, The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT., Liu Y; School of Journalism and Communication, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China., Henson-García M; Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, UTHealth Science Center School of Public Health, Dallas, TX., Yang J; Public Health Division, New Mexico Department of Health, Albuquerque, NM., Bouchacourt LM; Center for Health Communication, Moody College of Communication & Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX., Cahill AG; Department of Women's Health, Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: American journal of infection control [Am J Infect Control] 2024 Dec; Vol. 52 (12), pp. 1419-1424. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Aug 28.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajic.2024.08.021
Abstrakt: Background: Given the risk of infection through face-touching behaviors, investigators have called for more research into the development of interventions to reduce the frequency of face-touching. The current study aims to test the effectiveness of messages on reducing face-touching behaviors.
Methods: Nine different messages that highlighted the risk of face-touching were developed. Study 1, an online survey-experiment with a national sample of US adults (N = 998), examined message-, risk perceptions, and face-touching-related behavioral intentions. The most promising messages identified in study 1 were then tested in study 2, a follow-up behavioral observation study with a class of undergraduate students. Students' face-touching behaviors were observed during a 4-week period when intervention versus control messages were displayed in the classroom.
Results: Four messages performed better in study 1, 2 of which were selected to test the actual message effectiveness in study 2. Study 2 results showed that on average, students touched their faces less frequently when a "Don't touch your face" message was present, although such decrease was not statistically significant.
Conclusions: Having reminder messages of "Don't touch your face" in public spaces hold the potential to be a low-cost, effective strategy to reduce face-touching behaviors.
(Copyright © 2024 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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