Rahn Maxi, Tomczyk Samuel, Schopp Nathalie, Schmidt Silke
Department of Health and Prevention, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, Bonn, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2021 Apr 1;12:557178. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.557178. eCollection 2021.
In crisis communication, warning messages are key to informing and galvanizing the public to prevent or mitigate damage. Therefore, this study examines how risk appraisal and individual characteristics influence the intention to comply with behavioral recommendations of a warning message regarding three hazard types: the COVID-19 pandemic, violent acts, and severe weather.
A cross-sectional survey examined 403 German participants from 18 to 89 years ( = 29.24; 72% female). Participants were allocated to one of three hazard types (COVID-19 pandemic, violent acts, severe weather) and presented with warning messages that were previously issued via an official warning app. Four components of risk appraisal-perceived severity (PS), anticipated negative emotions (AE), anticipatory worry (AW), and risk perception (RP)-were assessed before and after presenting the warning message. Path models were calculated to predict the intention to comply with the warning message, controlling for age, gender, and previous hazard experience.
For the COVID-19 pandemic, higher age (β = 0.18) predicted warning compliance ( = 0.05). AE (β = 0.20) predicted compliance in the case of violent acts ( = 0.09). For severe weather, PS (β = 0.28), age (β = 0.29), and female gender (β = 0.34) lead to higher compliance ( = 0.27). Changes across risk appraisal components were not consistent, as some facets decreased after the receipt of a warning message.
Risk appraisal has shown a marginal yet differential influence on warning message compliance in different types of hazards. Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of sociodemographic factors on compliance should be studied more intensively. Moreover, integrating intermediary variables, such as self-efficacy, is necessary.
在危机沟通中，警告信息是告知和激励公众预防或减轻损害的关键。因此，本研究考察了风险评估和个体特征如何影响人们遵守关于三种危险类型的警告信息中行为建议的意愿，这三种危险类型分别是：新冠疫情、暴力行为和恶劣天气。
一项横断面调查研究了403名年龄在18至89岁之间的德国参与者（平均年龄=29.24岁；72%为女性）。参与者被分配到三种危险类型之一（新冠疫情、暴力行为、恶劣天气），并收到之前通过官方警告应用程序发布的警告信息。在展示警告信息之前和之后，评估了风险评估的四个组成部分——感知严重性（PS）、预期负面情绪（AE）、预期担忧（AW）和风险感知（RP）。计算路径模型以预测遵守警告信息的意愿，并控制年龄、性别和以前的危险经历。
对于新冠疫情，年龄较大（β=0.18）预测会遵守警告（p=0.05）。在暴力行为的情况下，预期负面情绪（β=0.20）预测会遵守警告（p=0.09）。对于恶劣天气，感知严重性（β=0.28）、年龄（β=0.29）和女性性别（β=0.34）导致更高的遵守率（p=0.27）。风险评估组成部分的变化并不一致，因为有些方面在收到警告信息后有所下降。
风险评估对不同类型危险中警告信息的遵守显示出微小但有差异的影响。关于新冠疫情，应更深入地研究社会人口因素对遵守情况的影响。此外，整合中介变量，如自我效能感，是必要的。
