ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1588931
Understanding the social and cognitive influences on the adoption of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical intervention behaviors: A survey of a Saudi Arabian sample
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia
- 2King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia
- 3Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, United States
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COVID-19 vaccines prevent death and severe illness, but not infection. Public health leaders continue to stress the importance of non-pharmaceutical intervention behaviors (NPIs). However, little is known about how social, environmental, and cognitive factors influence the adoption of NPIs. A theory-informed survey was distributed to adults living in Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia. The primary focus is self-reported adherence with NPIs. Socio-environmental factors included observational learning, social norms, and media. Personal cognitive factors included self-efficacy, outcome expectancies, and knowledge. The mean age was 31 years (n=368), most participants were males (62%), and the study sample were significantly more vaccinated (40%) than the Saudi public (5.3%). NPIs were strongly correlated with social norms (r=0.73, p<0.001), and positively correlated with self-efficacy (r=0.25, p<0.001) . Females reported higher NPIs adherence rates (M = 17.04, SD = 3.86) than males (M = 16.29, SD = 4.12). The hierarchical multiple regression model revealed that socio-environmental factors explained a significant proportion of variance in NPIs (R2=.52, p<.001). The findings highlight the usefulness of a social cognitive model in predicting NPIs. The study shows that social factors, especially social norms, significantly influence the adoption of NPIs. Hence, health organizations should consider social factors when developing campaigns against current and future infectious diseases.
Keywords: Preventive behaviors, COVID-19, social cognitive theory, Non-pharmaceutical interventions, social norms
Received: 06 Mar 2025; Accepted: 31 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alobaydullah, Lajoie, Thomas, Fumey and Alsaleem. 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: Ahmed Alobaydullah, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia
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