الفهرس 
CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19)Only 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Background: COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which is responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome. The COVID-19 outbreak was declared a global pandemic by WHO on March 11, 2020. WHO has recommended several health-promotive behaviors for the prevention of COVID-19 pandemic. Predictive factors for practicing preventative behavior are extremely helpful for improving people’s health behavior. Results from previous relevant studies showed that The HBM model has the ability to explain and predict behaviors associated with positive health outcomes. Objective: To evaluate the knowledge, precautionary behavior, and perception of Egyptian population based on constructs of the health belief model (HBM) regarding COVID-19 and identify the factors that influence the precautionary behavior among sample of Egyptian population. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using an online questionnaire of Egyptian population aged 18 years or more. The questionnaire was conducted from 1st August 2020 to the end of December 2020. Results: A total of 805 participants (mean age of 30.63±10.06 years, 53.8% females) completed questionnaire. Over 85% had a high level of knowledge, 77.3% scored a high level of practicing preventive behavior. Preventive behavior practice had significant positive correlation with perceived susceptibility(r=0.28), perceived severity(r=0.21), perceived benefits(r=0.41), cues to actions(r=0.41), self-efficacy(r=0.51), and a significant negative correlation (r=-0.32) with perceived barriers. The regression analysis indicated that male gender (β = − 0.79), perceived susceptibility (β = 0.36), perceived benefits (β = 0.33), perceived barriers (β = − 0.14), self-efficacy (β = 1.85), cues to action (β = 0.61) were significantly associated with COVID-19 Preventive behavior practice (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Most of the study participants (85.5%) had a high knowledge level. Most participants showed a high degree of COVID-19 perception (based on HBM). 77.3% of the participants had a high-performance level of preventive behavior against COVID-19. the HBM model has the ability to explain and predict the practice of COVID-19 preventive behaviors. Recommendations: Designing an educational intervention based on HBM to support adherence to precautionary measures is still required. Health information campaigns need to emphasize the benefits of precautionary behaviors including avoiding the likelihood of getting a chronic disease and complications of the disease, highlight the tips and advice to overcome the barriers, provide cues to action in social media focusing on adoption of COVID-19-related precautionary behaviors, especially among men. based on the predictors of preventive behavior, we recommend identifying the high-risk groups and applying a targeted focused health education for those groups.