Mass Media Influence on Changing Healthy Lifestyle of Community People During COVID-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Survey

15, March 2021 |

Authors:

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization, the coronavi- rus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has infected more than 100 million people worldwide and has triggered over 2 302 302 deaths. 1 The first confirmed case in Bangladesh was reported on March 8, 2020, 2 and an increase in the positive cases of COVID-19 was identified in late April and early June 2020, respectively. 3,4 Therefore, some healthy lifestyle was imposed by experts to combat COVID-19. However, healthy lifestyle behavior changes are a process that takes time and requires support; thus, mass media inter- vention is a must to address the challenges of changing health behavior. Mass media reported that infectious diseases will have substantial psychological effects on the community’s beliefs, knowledge, behaviors, and perspectives. 5 To the best of the authors’ knowledge, so far, no study has been under- taken on this issue. This article intends to assess the associa- tion of knowledge level (CK), media use (MU), media check-in capability (MCH), and media credibility (MC) in influencing the changing healthy lifestyle behavior of the respondents.