Accepted for/Published in: Online Journal of Public Health Informatics
Date Submitted: Jun 11, 2024
Date Accepted: Apr 18, 2025
Age-Specific Differences in Association Between Personality and Changes in Outing Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan: Cross-Sectional Web-Based Questionnaire Survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
Restrictions on outings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic had various effects on health-related issues, such as delays in disease detection and declines in health conditions for older adults. Therefore, it is important to engage in appropriate outing behavior during pandemics. Associations between COVID-19 prevention behavior and personality traits are reported. However, an association between types of outing behavior and individuals’ personality traits remains unclear.
Objective:
This study aimed to clarify the association between personality traits and changes in different types of outing behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods:
This cross-sectional survey was conducted in January 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic using a web-based questionnaire in Japan. A total of 1,236 participants were recruited, with an equal number of participants for each gender and 10-year age group. The questionnaire asked about changes in the frequency of three types of outings— medical institution visits, eating out, and traveling—and participants’ personality traits such as sociability and morality. Logistic regression analysis was performed to analyze the association between personality traits and changes in different outing behaviors.
Results:
Seven hundred and ninety participants reported an unchanged frequency of medical institution visits and decreased frequencies of eating out and traveling during the pandemic. Logistic regression analysis showed that sociable people were more likely to reduce the frequency of medical institution visits compared to non-sociable people (OR 1.57, 95%CI 1.19-2.08, P<.001), and strongly responsible people and moral people were more likely to reduce the frequency of traveling compared to those without each personality trait (OR 1.73, 95%CI 1.18-2.54, P=.005, and OR 1.48, 95%CI 1.01-2.17, P=.044, respectively).
Conclusions:
This study highlights different tendencies in behavioral changes among types of outings and their associations with personality traits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings may be beneficial to promote appropriate behaviors among people in emergency communication within public health settings.
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