Optimism Bias, Fear, and Compliance with COVID-19 Related Protective Behaviors Among Healthy and Diabetic Young Adults

On March 11th, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic; and caused more than 4 million deaths worldwide. In Pakistan, government efforts to minimize the spread of disease emphasized protective behaviors including social distancing, hand washing, self-isolation, and seeking medical attention if experiencing symptoms. However, the local populace remained largely disengaged, seemed unaware, and failed to adhere to official preventive guidelines from the government. This study investigated the relationship among optimism bias, fear of COVID-19, and compliance with COVID-19-related protective behaviors among a sample of healthy and high-risk young adults diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Fifty healthy and 50 diabetic young adults aged 18-23 years were administered the Optimism Bias Measurement (Druică et al., 2020), Fear of COVID-19 Scale (Ahorsu et al., 2020), and the Preventive COVID-19 Infection Behavior Scale (Chang et al., 2020). The results revealed that optimism bias had a significant negative, and fear of COVID-19 had a significant positive correlation with compliance with COVID-19-related protective behaviors. Moreover, healthy young adults had significantly higher optimism bias, but lower fear and compliance as compared to diabetic young adults. Overall, the findings will facilitate public health policymakers and social scientists to better understand the factors that can influence compliance with preventive protocols enforced against the pandemic in Pakistan.