ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1498560
Factors Associated with the Mask-Wearing Behavior of University Students in Japan: A Cross-Sectional Study of the Post-Mask-Mandate Period
Provisionally accepted
- 1Nagasaki University Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki, Japan
- 2Nagasaki University School of Health Sciences, Nagasaki, Japan
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has required people to adapt to a new lifestyle, which includes wearing masks. In Japan, mask-wearing mandates were prolonged for nearly three years, leading to the habitual use of masks by many people. This habit persisted even after the relaxation of the mandates. Excessive mask wearing, such as wearing masks in low-risk settings, can lead to dehydration, especially during the summer. However, studies on Japanese people's maskwearing behavior in the post-mask-mandate period are lacking. Therefore, the reasons that people excessively wear masks should be investigated. This study aimed to identify factors, including perceptions of mask wearing, that influence the frequency and habit of wearing masks in the postmandate period. An online questionnaire was distributed to 471 university students in Japan between June 12 and 24, 2023. The results indicated that the frequency of mask wearing exhibited a dichotomous trend. According to the multiple regression analysis, the strongest predictor of both the frequency and habit of mask wearing was a sense of unease from not wearing a mask rather than anxiety related to COVID-19. This study provides the government with basic data to develop guidelines for the proper wearing of masks to prevent heatstroke.
Keywords: COVID-19, habit, Health Behavior, mask, Japan, university students
Received: 19 Sep 2024; Accepted: 04 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hirano, Iwashita, Muta and Ishida. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yuko O. Hirano, Nagasaki University Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki, Japan
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.