Perceived risk and compliance at a COVID-19 test station

Public health strategies to protect against pandemics rely on members of the public volunteering to be tested when they have legitimate concerns about being infected. People may be motivated to seek testing due to believing they have been more at risk for infection, they have been more exposed to infection, or they have not taken the same precautions as others. We asked people at a COVID-19 test station in October 2020 (T1, n = 179) and in January-February 2021 (T2, n = 184) about their recent perceived risk, their exposure to infection sources and their compliance with infection control measures. Their responses were compared to those from a representative sample (T1 n = 2.523 and T2 n = 2.194) taken at approximately the same time. We found that people at test stations had seen the risk as lower, that they had more frequently been in situations where they could have been exposed to infection, and they had complied less with infection control measures.