Coronavirus in Scotland: Women are better than men at following restrictions, study finds

Women are better than men at following Covid-19 restrictions, a new study from Aberdeen University has found.

Women were found to be better than men at following the rules.

The study found that the majority of Scots follow guidance such as social distancing, handwashing and wearing a face covering, but researchers said there is still work to be done.

The preliminary findings are part of the nationwide Covid Health and Adherence Research in Scotland (CHARIS) project, funded by the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) Rapid Research in Covid-19 Programme.

Since the project began in June this year the team from the university’s Institute of Applied Health Sciences have interviewed thousands of Scottish volunteers to establish whether they were adhering to the guidance.

They suggest that certain groups – including men and younger people – should be targeted with public health messaging to improve their compliance.

“These initial results are encouraging in the sense that the majority of people in Scotland are adhering to the behaviours designed to protect ourselves and others from Covid-19,” said health psychologist working on the research Professor Diane Dixon.

“However, our work also found that there are groups of people – men and young people, for whom this behaviour change may be proving more difficult. Although preliminary at this stage, it does suggest that these groups may benefit from more targeted campaigns and messaging to promote this behaviour change.”

In another part of the work, Professor Marie Johnston found that handwashing, physical distancing and wearing face coverings were quickly becoming habit for most people and most people have adopted these with a high degree of automaticity.

Professor Johnston found that handwashing is the most established behaviour of the three, followed by face coverings and physical distancing being the most difficult to get used to.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman welcomed the findings, and said: “This research will help inform the Scottish Government’s approach when asking the public to stick with it in our ongoing effort to suppress this virus.

"It emphasises the importance of research in our decision making. Adherence to guidance and rules is a collective effort and, while it has been an extremely difficult period for everybody, we will get there faster if we all stick together.

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