Wearing face masks when no longer mandatory: An exploratory study about attitudinal and psychological health factors in a large Italian sample.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, face masks emerged as a critical tool to control the virus transmission. While previous studies have investigated the positive and negative attitudes towards the use of face masks when mandatory, our study looks at a different phase: the era of discretionary mask us...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2025-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314607 |
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| author | Daniela Di Riso Silvia Spaggiari Giulia Calignano Paola Rigo Marina Miscioscia |
| author_facet | Daniela Di Riso Silvia Spaggiari Giulia Calignano Paola Rigo Marina Miscioscia |
| author_sort | Daniela Di Riso |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, face masks emerged as a critical tool to control the virus transmission. While previous studies have investigated the positive and negative attitudes towards the use of face masks when mandatory, our study looks at a different phase: the era of discretionary mask use. Our investigation reached Italian participants (1151), aged 18-64, who underwent an online survey. The study explored the associations between demographic, attitudinal, psychological, and emotional factors that may be involved in the behaviour of wearing a face mask. Then, by using generalized mixed effects models, we explored the predictive role of those factors selected via backward elimination starting from a full model and selecting the model with the best goodness of fit balanced with complexity, and higher explained variance. Specifically, our exploratory study expected that emotional experience aroused by wearing a face mask, negative affectivity, Covid-19-related fear, and anxiety might be significant predictors of face mask wearing. However, only the emotional experience of feeling a sense of care and protected while wearing a face mask, and Covid-19-related fear were significant predictors of face mask-use. We discussed the importance of considering attitudes involved in compliance with healthy behaviours to guide future health interventions. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-22a6e69d49df4fd19af6aeb2ba7529af |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-22a6e69d49df4fd19af6aeb2ba7529af2025-08-20T02:15:23ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01203e031460710.1371/journal.pone.0314607Wearing face masks when no longer mandatory: An exploratory study about attitudinal and psychological health factors in a large Italian sample.Daniela Di RisoSilvia SpaggiariGiulia CalignanoPaola RigoMarina MisciosciaThroughout the Covid-19 pandemic, face masks emerged as a critical tool to control the virus transmission. While previous studies have investigated the positive and negative attitudes towards the use of face masks when mandatory, our study looks at a different phase: the era of discretionary mask use. Our investigation reached Italian participants (1151), aged 18-64, who underwent an online survey. The study explored the associations between demographic, attitudinal, psychological, and emotional factors that may be involved in the behaviour of wearing a face mask. Then, by using generalized mixed effects models, we explored the predictive role of those factors selected via backward elimination starting from a full model and selecting the model with the best goodness of fit balanced with complexity, and higher explained variance. Specifically, our exploratory study expected that emotional experience aroused by wearing a face mask, negative affectivity, Covid-19-related fear, and anxiety might be significant predictors of face mask wearing. However, only the emotional experience of feeling a sense of care and protected while wearing a face mask, and Covid-19-related fear were significant predictors of face mask-use. We discussed the importance of considering attitudes involved in compliance with healthy behaviours to guide future health interventions.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314607 |
| spellingShingle | Daniela Di Riso Silvia Spaggiari Giulia Calignano Paola Rigo Marina Miscioscia Wearing face masks when no longer mandatory: An exploratory study about attitudinal and psychological health factors in a large Italian sample. PLoS ONE |
| title | Wearing face masks when no longer mandatory: An exploratory study about attitudinal and psychological health factors in a large Italian sample. |
| title_full | Wearing face masks when no longer mandatory: An exploratory study about attitudinal and psychological health factors in a large Italian sample. |
| title_fullStr | Wearing face masks when no longer mandatory: An exploratory study about attitudinal and psychological health factors in a large Italian sample. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Wearing face masks when no longer mandatory: An exploratory study about attitudinal and psychological health factors in a large Italian sample. |
| title_short | Wearing face masks when no longer mandatory: An exploratory study about attitudinal and psychological health factors in a large Italian sample. |
| title_sort | wearing face masks when no longer mandatory an exploratory study about attitudinal and psychological health factors in a large italian sample |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314607 |
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