Facemask memories: a qualitative approach to people’s construal of protective health behaviours

Abstract

Background: Understanding how people construe new health behaviours is important for public health policy and pandemic preparedness. Research suggests that people are willing to adhere to facemask guidance over time, but that this willingness can depend on various factors. To understand people’s construal of mandated protective health behaviours, we explored a previously untapped source of knowledge – people’s memories from lockdown concerning facemasks – through the Value Belief Norm theory. Methods: The sample comprised 68 participants aged 18–72, 53% female, who spontaneously identified facemasks as a lockdown-related object in their prompted memories. Memories were elicited via three open-ended questions involving a general period-cue (i.e., lockdown). The analytical procedure involved (1) Inductive thematic analysis, (2) Theory-led thematic analysis. Results: Our thematic analysis showed that facemask wearing was predominantly viewed in self-enhancing, normative, and moral terms. Although participants’ responses were not uniformly positive, they showed acceptance and adherence to mandated facemask wearing in memories elicited >9 months after UK guidance announcement. This variability was further evident in expressions of contrasting values. Conclusions: The complexity and heterogeneity of the facemask memories revealed a storied and constructed nature of facemask memories, with a remarkable level of details and vividness. Our findings suggest that people’s values and individual beliefs contributed to various ways of sensemaking around facemask wearing. In the current exploratory research, the overall picture of the public response to health guidance was that of psychological resilience – people’s construed facemask-wearing as a protective health behaviour and supported its uptake. Future directions to enhance public health policy are discussed.