Abstract
INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 was declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a pandemic in March 2020. Public health preventive measures are a crucial element in curbing the spread of infection, and individual social responsibility plays a big role contributing to these efforts. Understanding the perception of individuals on social responsibility is therefore important as human behaviour tends to be complex. In this study, a theoretical model was developed to illustrate how an individual responds to an outbreak from a social responsibility viewpoint.
METHOD: Grounded theory approach; a qualitative method was adopted in this study. In-depth interviews were conducted among 23 respondents either through telephone call or face-to-face depending on respondent preference, during the initial stage of the outbreak between March to July 2020. The respondents were recruited through networks of the research team members from various regions in Malaysia. Both purposive and theoretical sampling were applied. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and analysed as interviews went on until theoretical saturation of data was reached. Data analysis involved open coding, focus coding and theoretical coding, aided by memoing, sketching and modelling.
RESULTS: The developed theoretical model depicts that an individual act of social responsibility is a result of negotiation between the individual's perceived societal role responsibility and their perceived infection risk. The perceived societal role responsibility is the role that an individual is perceived to have within their perceived circle of responsibility. An individual may carry multiple roles, but they only assume one role within a particular context. On the other hand, perceived infection risk considers the response towards COVID-19 information received, the risk of getting infected, as well as their self-efficacy in risk modification. This negotiation process results in a matrix of four types of behaviour which facilitates the understanding of the spectrum of human behaviour in relation to public response to COVID-19. The spectrum includes individuals with perceived high infection risk and small circle of societal role responsibility; individuals with perceived high infection risk and large circle of societal role responsibility; individuals with perceived low infection risk and small societal role responsibility; and individuals with perceived low infection risk and large societal role responsibility. The negotiation process eventually determines the extent of actions which is adhering to preventive measures, to further advocating it to others in order to stop the spread of infection.
DISCUSSION: The developed model illustrates that perceived societal role and risk perception are both critical points that can be worked upon in order to achieve desired social responsibility during an outbreak. Providing effective risk communication reaching out to all levels of society would be beneficial, including explaining the exact roles that each individual in the society should play at a particular time to curb the spread of infection. The theoretical model is abstract, thus can be adopted in similar contexts of an outbreak in the future.
Links
- https://apcph.cphm.my/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/APCPH2022-O-49.pdf
- https://apcph.cphm.my/events/oral-session-4-ballroom-A/
BibTeX (Download)
@proceedings{APCPH2022-O-49,
title = {Social Responsibility during COVID-19 Outbreak},
author = {Nurul Iman Jamalul-lail and Low Lee Lan and Kalvina Chelladorai and Tan Yui Ping and Zalilah Abdullah and Tay Yea Lu},
url = {https://apcph.cphm.my/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/APCPH2022-O-49.pdf
https://apcph.cphm.my/events/oral-session-4-ballroom-A/},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-08-01},
urldate = {2022-08-02},
issue = {7},
abstract = {INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 was declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a pandemic in March 2020. Public health preventive measures are a crucial element in curbing the spread of infection, and individual social responsibility plays a big role contributing to these efforts. Understanding the perception of individuals on social responsibility is therefore important as human behaviour tends to be complex. In this study, a theoretical model was developed to illustrate how an individual responds to an outbreak from a social responsibility viewpoint.
METHOD: Grounded theory approach; a qualitative method was adopted in this study. In-depth interviews were conducted among 23 respondents either through telephone call or face-to-face depending on respondent preference, during the initial stage of the outbreak between March to July 2020. The respondents were recruited through networks of the research team members from various regions in Malaysia. Both purposive and theoretical sampling were applied. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and analysed as interviews went on until theoretical saturation of data was reached. Data analysis involved open coding, focus coding and theoretical coding, aided by memoing, sketching and modelling.
RESULTS: The developed theoretical model depicts that an individual act of social responsibility is a result of negotiation between the individual's perceived societal role responsibility and their perceived infection risk. The perceived societal role responsibility is the role that an individual is perceived to have within their perceived circle of responsibility. An individual may carry multiple roles, but they only assume one role within a particular context. On the other hand, perceived infection risk considers the response towards COVID-19 information received, the risk of getting infected, as well as their self-efficacy in risk modification. This negotiation process results in a matrix of four types of behaviour which facilitates the understanding of the spectrum of human behaviour in relation to public response to COVID-19. The spectrum includes individuals with perceived high infection risk and small circle of societal role responsibility; individuals with perceived high infection risk and large circle of societal role responsibility; individuals with perceived low infection risk and small societal role responsibility; and individuals with perceived low infection risk and large societal role responsibility. The negotiation process eventually determines the extent of actions which is adhering to preventive measures, to further advocating it to others in order to stop the spread of infection.
DISCUSSION: The developed model illustrates that perceived societal role and risk perception are both critical points that can be worked upon in order to achieve desired social responsibility during an outbreak. Providing effective risk communication reaching out to all levels of society would be beneficial, including explaining the exact roles that each individual in the society should play at a particular time to curb the spread of infection. The theoretical model is abstract, thus can be adopted in similar contexts of an outbreak in the future.},
howpublished = {published online at https://apcph.cphm.my},
note = {Type: ORAL PRESENTATION; Organisation: Institute for Health Systems Research, National Institutes of Health, MOH Malaysia},
keywords = {Covid-19, Pandemic, Qualitative, Social responsibility, Theoretical model},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {proceedings}
}