Effectiveness of Health Belief Model in Adopting Protective Behaviors Against COVID-19

Background: Adoption of protective health behaviors is extremely important to prevent the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the influencing factors on adopting preventive behaviors during COVID-19 using health belief model (HBM) among the urban population in Maragheh, a city from North West of Iran. Methods: We investigated 383 people via an online questionnaire from December 5 to 11, 2020. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed with an experts' panel of 10 health professionals, and its reliability was 0.74 through Cronbach’s alpha. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to analyze data. Results: The self-efficacy (17.1 ± 2.5) and perceived benefits (5.7 ± 0.5) were evaluated at a high level. The health behavior was also appraised with a high mean score (21.2 ± 3.2). Among the components of the health belief model, perceived risk, self-efficacy, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers, and among demographic variables, gender and marital status were the predictors of protective behaviors against COVID-19. Conclusions: Self-efficacy, perceived benefits, and perceived risk increased the incidence of protective behavior by 69% and 30%, respectively, and perceived barriers decreased it by 0.07%. Strengthening the ability to adopt protective behaviors and improving the public’s perception of the effectiveness of these behaviors can be useful.