ACCEPTANCE LEVEL AND BEHAVIOR OF THAI PEOPLE TOWARDS THE POLICIES AND MEASURES IN CONTROLLING AND PREVENTING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

This research aimed to (1) study the level of public acceptance of government policies and measures in controlling and preventing the COVID-19 outbreak during the initial period; (2) compare personal factors with the level of adoption of such policies and measures; (3) study the behavior of Thai people towards the policies and measures and; (4) analyze the association of personal factors with their behavior. Cross-sectional survey research was employed. The data was collected from a sample of 1,272 persons by an online questionnaire distributed through various public and private networks nationwide. The statistics used to analyze the data were percentage, mean, standard deviation, Chi-Square, t-test, and One-Way ANOVA. The results showed that the respondents accepted the policies and measures of the government to control the COVID-19 outbreak on average at a high level (  = 4.36, SD = 0.62). By which, they agreed with the measure of stay home, stop infection at the highest rank. But, on the other hand, they agreed with the lockdown measure at the lowest rank. Besides, respondents of different ages, marital status, education, occupation, and places of residence did differ in their acceptance of the policies and measures at a significance level of 0.05. The majority of the respondents followed the policies and measures. Moreover, the study revealed that personal factors in terms of gender, age, marital status, education, occupation, and places of residence, were significantly associated with the behaviors of the respondents at 0.05 level.