Evaluation of Health Education Materials on COVID-19 as Aerosol: Application of Health Belief Model

Abstract

Objective. This study aimed to evaluate health education materials on COVID-19 as aerosol in the framework of the Health Belief Model.

Methods. A quasi-experimental study was done to obtain data from 918 respondents in a university community in Camiling, Tarlac. Multi-stage sampling technique was implemented in choosing programs from the university. The respondents were equally grouped into three health education materials (text-based, comic-based, and video-based). Respondents filled out the questionnaires to measure their knowledge, perception, and willingness to act towards COVID-19 as aerosol before and after reading or watching health education materials in the setting of Health Belief Model. Data gathered were compiled and assessed using the software Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS).

Results. The results of the research showed that majority of the respondents had a low level of knowledge before reading or watching health education materials on COVID-19 as aerosol, however, the knowledge of the respondents was high after giving the health education materials. Before and after reading the text-based health education materials, majority of respondents had a low level of perceived susceptibility and barriers, but a high level of perceived severity, benefits, self-efficacy, and cues to action. Before and after reading the comics-based health education materials, majority of respondents had low perceived susceptibility and barriers and high levels of perceived benefits, severity, cues to actions, and self-efficacy. Before and after watching video-based health education materials, majority of respondents had low perceived susceptibility and barriers, and high levels of perceived severity, benefits, self-efficacy, and cues to action. Also, respondents are definitely willing to take action towards COVID-19 as aerosol preventive behavior after the interventions. The present study also found out that in text-based, the predictors of the respondents to take actions are perceived barriers and self-efficacy. While comic-based, the perceived susceptibility, perceived barriers, perceived benefits, self-efficacy and cues to action remarkably predicted the respondents’ willingness to take actions in COVID-19 as aerosol. And in video-based, the respondents’ willingness to act were significantly influenced by their levels of perceived severity, barriers, benefits and self-efficacy.

Conclusion. The study revealed that the respondents’ knowledge level of COVID-19 as aerosol is high in all three health education materials. Most respondents in the three health education materials used have low perceived susceptibility and perceived barriers in both the pre- and post-test. In addition, during pre- and post-test, levels of perceived benefits, cues to actions, severity, and self-efficacy were observed to be high. There are respondents who are still not very willing to take action, but during the post-test, the majority of respondents are definitely willing to take action to prevent aerosol transmission of COVID-19. A negative correlation was observed between the willingness to take actions and the perceived barriers, while the rest have positive correlations between the willingness to take actions.