Psychological correlates of arbovirus preventive health behaviour

Background Current arbovirus preventive health interventions do not take social and personality variables into account. Social cognition models posit that people engage in preventive health behaviour (PHB) after an assessment of the perceived risk of disease, an analysis of potential consequences and an evaluation of self-efficacy. Methods In a sample of 385 undergraduate and medical students, we examined the association between social relationships, conscientiousness and mosquito repellent use. Data were analysed in a series of stepwise regression analyses. Results Social relationships influenced the association between conscientiousness and mosquito repellent use. As expected, perceptions of positive social relationships and conscientiousness are positively linked with mosquito repellent use. Conversely, perceptions of negative social relationships are linked to an inverse association between conscientiousness and mosquito repellent use. Conclusions Future interventions designed to increase perceptions of social relationships might be helpful in increasing arbovirus preventive health behaviour such as using mosquito repellents. Since the present study was concurrent correlational in nature, future research would benefit from experimental interventions designed to directly examine the effect of enhancing positive relations and social support on arbovirus preventive health behaviour.