Socio-demographic predictors of adherence to 2019 coronavirus prescribed recommendations and lockdown psychological impacts: Perspectives of Nigerian social media users

Abstract

Background: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is a highly infectious viral disease that has spread to over one hundred and eight countries, including Nigeria. Governments across the globe have been implementing preventive measures towards curbing the spread and impact of the virus. These measures have continued to interfere with the general lifestyle of the people. Hence, this study was aimed at examining the socio-demographic predictors of adherence to prescribed recommendations and the psychological impacts of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown among Nigerian social media users. Methods: This research implemented a cross-sectional survey using an online Google-based questionnaire to elicit required information from potential respondents via social media channels such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and Facebook. An external link to the questionnaire was shared among Nigerian social media users between 1st and 31st April 2020, and a total of 1,131 respondents participated in the survey. The explanatory and outcome variables were displayed by frequency and percentage distribution while chi-square analysis was used to show the relationship between the explanatory and outcome variables at 5% level of significant. Results: The study showed that 99% of the respondents reported to have been following some of the prescribed recommendations, however, only 40.4% of the respondents followed all the recommendations. More than three fifths (63.4%) of the respondents also reported having experienced stressed during the lockdown. Only respondents’ professional background (p<0.05) was a predictor of psychological impact of lockdown, other selected socio-demographic characteristics were not predictors of the outcome variables as p>0.05. Conclusion: We concluded that majority of Nigerian social media users were complying to the prescribed recommendations and that younger age group, female respondents and respondents who are more educated had higher proportion of psychological impacts of lockdown, while the medical/scientific background is the only socio-demographic predictor of psychological impacts of COVID-19 lockdown.