Evaluation of Risk Perception of Covid-19 Disease: A Community-based Participatory Study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: How people behave in a crisis depends on their understanding and evaluation of risk and vulnerability. Therefore this study was conducted to investigate the Iranians' risk perception of Covid-19 disease. METHODS: An online survey was applied which collected information on demographic, the five dimensions of risk perception (cognitive, political, social, cultural, and emotional) and Trust in government among the Iranian users of social networks. Data were analyzed by descriptive and analytical tests of SPSS software, and confirmatory factor analysis of Amos software. FINDINGS: 364 persons from 20 provinces completed the questionnaire during February 25 to March 2, 2020. More than 80% of the participants believed that negligence and lack of close supervision of the authorities have led to the spread of Covid-19 disease. The mean (SD) risk perception was 58.77 (± 10.11), indicating the medium level of risk perception of people. The second-order confirmatory factor analysis also indicated that cultural dimension had the highest positive correlation (0.96), emotional dimension had the highest negative correlation (-0.65), and social dimension had the least correlation with the risk perception model (0.08). CONCLUSION: Iranians' Risk Perception of Covid-19 outbreak is not optimal, and it seems necessary to improve it.