AUTHOR=Bronfman Nicolás , Repetto Paula , Cisternas Pamela , Castañeda Javiera , Cordón Paola 

TITLE=Government Trust and Motivational Factors on Health Protective Behaviors to Prevent COVID-19 Among Young Adults

JOURNAL=International Journal of Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 67 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/international-journal-of-public-health/articles/10.3389/ijph.2022.1604290

DOI=10.3389/ijph.2022.1604290

ISSN=1661-8564

ABSTRACT=Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of government trust on young adults' adoption of health behaviors to prevent infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Method: We tested the hypothesis that government trust would directly and indirectly (through worry/fear and subjective norms) influence the adoption of health-protective behaviors. A sample of 1,136 university students completed a web survey after Chile’s first wave of infections. 

Results: The results indicate that low government trust only indirectly (through subjective norms) influenced health-protective behaviors. Conversely, worry/fear was the primary motivating factor for adopting health-protective behaviors in young adults, followed by subjective norms. 

Conclusions: In scenarios where people perceive low government trust, emotions and social norms are the motivational factors with the most significant predictive power on the adoption of health-protective behaviors. 

Keywords: protective behaviors, government trust, worry, subjective norms, COVID-19.