Perceived Stress and Its Impact on Health Behavior of Chinese Residents during the Epidemic of COVID-19: An Internet Survey

Abstract Background: The outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease(COVID-19) caused severe respiratory illnesses, which might be resulted from air-borne droplets or direct contact, posing a great threat to human life. Meanwhile, the epidemic might trigger excessive stresses and produce terrible impacts on mental health even health behaviors, especially of the vulnerable individuals. So this study paved the way for psychological interventions focused on vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 epidemic.Methods: An internet survey was conducted among 2,449 residents in 20 Provinces of China, collecting the data about the perceived stress, the cognition of COVID-19 and the health behaviors. SAS9.4 was used to analyze the relationship between health behaviors and perceived stress, and logistic regression was used to explore the influencing factors of health risk stress.Results: The perceived stress score was 22.25±7.2(total56), and the incidence of health risk stress was 39.89% (977/2449). Perceived stress increased, while the frequency of health behaviors decreased, such as washing hands and wearing masks. Age, cognition of susceptibility to COVID-19, life-threatening level, cognition of the importance of home isolation, and cognition of the difference between common cold and COVID-19 were positively related to the occurrence of health risk stress.Conclusions: A negative correlation was found between health behaviors and perceived stress.Therefore, it is of great significance to improve residents’ knowledge of the COVID-19, to provide good social support and psychological interventions for those how are experiencing health risk stress and to promote their health behaviors.