Trajectories of public psycho-behavioural responses relating to influenza A(H7N9) over the winter of 2014-15 in Hong Kong

Objective: To explore trajectories of public psycho-behavioural responses over one influenza A(H7N9) epidemic wave, and examine the interplays among social norm influence, disease worry and protective behaviours.

Methods: Participants were 464 adults who completed the baseline and at least two follow-up assessments on their H7N9-related Perceived Susceptibility, Perceived Severity, Perceived Efficacy, Worry, Social Norms influence and Protective Behaviours in a five-phase longitudinal survey over one H7N9 epidemic wave. Latent growth modelling (LGM) identified trajectories of these psycho-behavioural responses while multi-process LGM examined the inter-relationships among trajectories of Social Norms influence, Worry and Protective Behaviours.

Results: Trajectories of Perceived Susceptibility, Worry, Social Norms and Protective Behaviours increased initially but declined as the epidemic decayed, while Perceived Severity increased linearly and Perceived Efficacy remained stable across the epidemic. Change in Social Norms influence was significantly associated with change in Worry (β?=?0.65) which was significantly associated with change in Protective Behaviours (β?=?0.62).

Conclusion: The public’s threat appraisal but not efficacy appraisal may have been well-informed by epidemic-related information. Social Norms may be important contributors of public emotional response to an epidemic. Communication via social networks during an epidemic could be important for regulating public emotional response and guiding their behavioural change.     

Orthographic Knowledge Important in Comprehending Elementary Chinese Text by Users of Alphasyllabaries

Orthographic knowledge in Chinese was hypothesized to affect elementary Chinese text comprehension (four essays) by 80 twelve-year-old ethnic alphasyllabary language users compared with 74 native Chinese speakers at similar reading level. This was tested with two rapid automatized naming tasks; two working memory tasks; three orthographic knowledge tasks in Chinese; and equivalent tasks in English. Multivariate analyses of covariance showed that the two groups were differentiated on most of the linguistic and cognitive tasks. Confirmatory factor analyses found four factors as hypothesized: text comprehension, verbal working memory, orthographic knowledge in Chinese, and orthographic knowledge in English. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that orthographic knowledge in Chinese explained a considerable amount of individual variation in elementary Chinese text comprehension.