Correlations of demographic factors and hygiene factors with face mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic and suggestion for future research: A cross-sectional study of adults in Malaysia

BACKGROUND: Despite the many touted benefits of community-wide face mask wearing, numerous communication campaigns and mandates, some people still refuse or fail to wear face masks in public settings. Hence, exposing themselves and others to the risk of infection by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and raise the potential for public healthcare systems to become overwhelmed once again. This study investigates demographic and hygiene factors related to propensity of face mask wearing in public settings.

DESIGN AND METHODS: The self-administered online questionnaire contained the independent variables (demographic and hygiene factors) and the outcome variable (frequency of face mask wearing). Participants were recruited through convenience and snowball sampling techniques. Seven hundred and eight responses were collected from Malaysian adults between May and June 2020. The demographic characteristics of participants, differences in the frequency of face mask wearing across demographic factors and hierarchical multiple regression were analyzed.

RESULTS: The propensity of face mask wearing differs by gender. The hierarchical multiple regression revealed that being female, having personal protective equipment available and frequently washing hands were positively correlated with the frequency of face mask wearing. Moreover, the availability of personal protective equipment and the frequency of hand washing accounted for greater variation of the frequency of face mask wearing than gender.

CONCLUSION: Future studies should adopt established psychosocial models in conjunction with normative and cultural factors for a better understanding of underlying motivations to engage in preventive health behaviors to shape improved hygienic and societal precautionary protective behaviors in different contexts.