School of Physical Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China.
School of Physical Education, Wuhan Sports University, Wuhan, China.
Front Public Health. 2023 Mar 13;11:1029049. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1029049. eCollection 2023.
Following preventive behaviors is a key measure to protect people from infectious diseases. Protection motivation theory (PMT) suggests that perceived risk motivates individuals to take protective measures. The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented stress to the public, and changes in perceived risk may be more pronounced among college students than among other groups due to the related campus lockdown. With 1,119 college students recruited as research subjects, a quantitative research was conducted in Wuhan, China, to deduce the relationship between the perceived risk and preventive behavior of college students, as well as between the mediation effect of individual affect and the moderating effect of physical exercise. The results showed that the preventive behavior of college students was significantly affected by perceived risk, and both positive affect and negative affect played a mediating role between perceived risk and preventive behavior. Specifically, positive affect aided the relationship between perceived risk and preventive behavior, negative affect was detrimental to their relationship, and the mediation effect of positive affect is significantly higher than that of negative affect. Furthermore, physical exercise played a moderating role in the mediation effects of positive affect and negative affect. Therefore, appropriate measures should be taken to strengthen Chinese college students' perceived risk and provide them with corresponding guidance. The importance of physical exercise should also be emphasized to help college students with low perceived risk reduce negative affect, increase positive affect, and promote their preventive behavior.
采取预防措施是保护人们免受传染病的关键措施。保护动机理论（PMT）表明，感知风险促使个人采取保护措施。COVID-19 大流行给公众带来了前所未有的压力，由于相关的校园封锁，大学生群体的感知风险变化可能比其他群体更为明显。本研究在中国武汉招募了 1119 名大学生作为研究对象，采用定量研究方法，推导出大学生感知风险与预防行为之间的关系，以及个体情绪在其中的中介作用和体育锻炼的调节作用。结果表明，大学生的预防行为受到感知风险的显著影响，积极情绪和消极情绪在感知风险与预防行为之间都发挥了中介作用。具体来说，积极情绪促进了感知风险与预防行为之间的关系，消极情绪则阻碍了它们之间的关系，并且积极情绪的中介效应显著高于消极情绪的中介效应。此外，体育锻炼在积极情绪和消极情绪的中介效应中起到了调节作用。因此，应采取适当措施加强中国大学生的感知风险意识，并为他们提供相应的指导。还应强调体育锻炼的重要性，以帮助感知风险较低的大学生减少消极情绪，增加积极情绪，促进他们的预防行为。
