WILL I SURVIVE? THE ROLE OF PERCEIVED RISK AND KNOWLEDGE TOWARD HOPE IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC: STUDY ON INDONESIAN STUDENTS

Abstract

Purpose of the study: The purpose of this study was to examine participant’s hopes whether the pandemic will end based on the perception of risk concerning vulnerability, severity, and anxiety as well as their knowledge about the pandemic among university students in Indonesia. Methodology: 431 (20 % male and 80 % female; Age mean = 19.98; SD = 1.421) undergraduate students in psychology were recruited from across university in Indonesia. A battery scale consists of three questionnaires evaluating perceived risk, knowledge, and hope were administered using the online survey. A multiple regression analysis was applied to examine the hypotheses. Main Findings: The results demonstrated that perceived risk and knowledge emerge as significant predictors of hope. The results also showed that there was a negative relationship between the dimension of perceived risk and hope. There was no significant correlation between health knowledge and hope. The results indicated a statistically significant model of regression. However, this study revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between health knowledge and hope. Applications of this study: The psychological aspect of risk perception and knowledge could be acknowledged as important variables to enhance the hope of university students to face this pandemic. Novelty/Originality of this study: The study offers a further explanation about the scope of earlier research in the field of hope in pandemic -19. It also provides a new research paradigm to the area of perceived risk by introducing understudied individual factors, such as knowledge associated with the hope of facing the pandemic among college students.