THE BRAZILIAN AND PORTUGUESE INTENTION TO STAY AT HOME DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Objective: Comparing Brazil with Portugal to analyze the influence of attitudes, social norms, and perceived control and word-of-mouth in the intention to stay at home. Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study, with a sample of 426 Brazilians and 154 Portuguese, being a non-probabilistic sample for convenience. Structural equation modeling and multigroup were used to analyze the model. Originality/Relevance: The humanitarian crisis related to the COVID-19 outbreak presents unprecedented challenges that all elements of the community-governments, companies, organizations in general, and citizens-are facing daily. The most effective means found so far to reduce the spread and contagion of the disease is to ask people to stay at home and maintain social distancing. This research uses decomposed theory of planned behavior to explain behavioral intention as a result of three variables: a person's attitude toward this behavior; subjective norms; and the perception of behavioral control. Results: Perceived control is the main variable that influences the intention to stay at home both in Portugal and Brazil. In addition to perceived control, word-of-mouth also had a significant effect. For Brazil, the attitude also influences the intention to stay at home and no effect of social norms was found in either country. Theoretical/methodological contributions: This research contributes to the theory of planned behavior-using its decomposed version-by analyzing a multigroup study between two countries regarding people's intention to stay at home.