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A dataset for the perceived vulnerability to disease scale in Japan before the spread of COVID-19

[version 2; peer review: 2 approved]
PUBLISHED 22 Jul 2020
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This article is included in the Emerging Diseases and Outbreaks gateway.

This article is included in the Japan Institutional Gateway gateway.

This article is included in the Coronavirus (COVID-19) collection.

This article is included in the DO NOT USE old GW area collection.

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak is a worldwide medical and epidemiological catastrophe, and the number of psychological studies concerning COVID-19 is growing daily. Such studies need baseline data from before the COVID-19 outbreak for comparison, but such datasets have not yet been accumulated and shared. Here, we provide a dataset on the perceived vulnerability to disease scale for 1382 Japanese participants obtained through an online survey conducted in 2018 that will be useful for comparison with current or post-COVID-19 perceived vulnerability to disease data.

Keywords

coronavirus, disgust, emotion, Japanese, perceived infectability, germ aversion

Revised Amendments from Version 1

Based on the reviewers' comments, some minor changes were made to improve clarity and accuracy. Figure 1 has been added for information.

See the authors' detailed response to the review by Shu Imaizumi
See the authors' detailed response to the review by Amir H. Pakpour

Introduction

Currently, a new type of coronavirus infection (coronavirus disease 2019; COVID-19) is spreading on a global scale. Although the details of this infection are not yet clear, it is rapidly spreading in many countries, and the strength of the infection is likely to be great. In response to this unprecedented situation, governments are asking people to take social distancing measures and limit their outside activities. Under such threats and political measures, the state of mind of the people must also be quite different from before. Therefore, many social and behavioral studies of such factors including people’s political attitudes, controllability, emotional states, anxiety, and stress in COVID-19 situations are being conducted simultaneously and rapidly (Van Bavel et al., 2020). However, it is difficult to predict how long the current pandemic will last, and even if the situation is under control, it is unclear whether the psychological traits of people in the post-COVID-19 world who experienced this pandemic will be similar to those before COVID-19. Thus, such survey studies need pre-outbreak data as a baseline for comparison and data obtained before the COVID-19 outbreak are of great importance. Accordingly, we here provide a dataset for the perceived vulnerability to disease scale obtained in Japan in 2018 (Yamada, 2020).

With the spread of COVID-19 and under the guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO), people have begun to wash their hands more often. Concomitantly, we have become more afraid of infection than ever before. People have begun to disinfect various places and objects with alcohol and to wear masks. These behaviors are based on a heightened perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD). A psychological scale has been developed to measure this tendency (Duncan et al., 2009). The PVD scale is composed of two subscales: “Perceived Infectability,” which is related to the beliefs of one’s own susceptibility to infecting diseases, and “Germ Aversion,” which is related to an awareness of discomfort in situations with a high likelihood of infection with a pathogen. This scale has already been localized in Japan (Fukukawa et al., 2014). It has also been translated not only in Japan but other countries as well (Ahmadzadeh et al., 2013; Klavina et al., 2011; Prokop et al., 2010; Skolnick & Dzokoto, 2013). In the early stages of the COVID-19 spread, the PVD was used to confirm concurrent validity of the scale regarding the COVID-19 (Ahorsu et al., 2020). Moreover, a Chinese study had already compared PVD scale scores with those of other countries (Goh, 2020); this was a cross-sectional study and there was no baseline. These results suggest that the generality of this scale and the necessity of baseline data are both striking. Therefore, we provide data on the pre-pandemic PVD scale for use in comparative studies (Yamada, 2020). The distribution of the individual PVD scale score is shown in Figure 1.

0d5ff592-dc9b-477e-839a-ec930c860eda_figure1.gif

Figure 1. The relation between the individual PVD scale score and age for male and female participants.

We excluded the data of the participants whose sex was unknown from this figure because their sample size was only 16.

Methods

Participants

We recruited a maximum of 2000 participants online through Yahoo! Crowdsourcing Service and recorded the data collected during the survey period. As a result, a total of 1428 Japanese people in Japan participated in this survey (868 men, 543 women, 17 unknown; mean age ± SD = 43.40 ± 10.62 years).

Scale

We used the Japanese version of the PVD scale developed by Fukukawa et al. (2014). The scale consists of a total of 15 items. Each item was scored on a seven-point scale (1: strongly disagree, 7: strongly agree). Items 3, 5, 11, 12, 13, and 14 were reverse-scaled items. All the items of this scale are available from the original papers (English: Duncan et al., 2009; Japanese: Fukukawa et al., 2014).

Procedure

The survey was conducted from September 22–23, 2018. Participants accessed the Yahoo! Crowdsourcing service page for the link to the web address of the survey page on Google Forms. The participants were first asked to input their age and sex (male, female, or other). The order of items on the scale was randomized across participants based on the setting of Google Forms. In order to check whether the participants were concentrating on the task, a calculation problem (171 − 169 = ?) was inserted after the 7th item of the PVD scale as an attention check question to identify respondents who do not answer seriously (Sasaki & Yamada, 2019). After the survey, the participants received 10 T-points (Japanese point service, in which one T-point is worth one JPY) as a reward.

Inclusion

The survey was posted on the website of the crowdsourcing service and users of the service were free to view it and participate in it.

Exclusion

We excluded participants who gave an incorrect answer to the attention check question. As a result, we eliminated the data of 46 participants. We present the remaining dataset for 1382 participants (833 men, 533 women, 16 unknown; mean age ± SD = 43.46 ± 10.62 years) as a relatively reliable one.

Ethical approval and consent to participate

The present study received approval from the psychological research ethics committee of the Faculty of Human-Environment Studies at Kyushu University (approval number: 2016-017). Completion of the survey was taken as consent to participate from participants. Participants had the right to withdraw from the survey at any time without providing a reason. Although we did not obtain personal information about the participants, as this was a crowdsourced survey, it was explained to them that their responses would not be tied to them personally.

Data availability

Underlying data

Open Science Framework: Japan PVD 2018. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/QW2AF; registration DOI https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/7Y4AV (Yamada, 2020).

This project contains the following underlying data:

  • PVDJapan2018.xlsx. (The dataset.)

  • Description of Dataset.txt.

Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero “No rights reserved” data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).

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Version 2
VERSION 2 PUBLISHED 06 May 2020
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CITE
how to cite this article
Yamada Y, Xu H and Sasaki K. A dataset for the perceived vulnerability to disease scale in Japan before the spread of COVID-19 [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]. F1000Research 2020, 9:334 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.23713.2)
NOTE: If applicable, it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
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Open Peer Review

Current Reviewer Status: ?
Key to Reviewer Statuses VIEW
ApprovedThe paper is scientifically sound in its current form and only minor, if any, improvements are suggested
Approved with reservations A number of small changes, sometimes more significant revisions are required to address specific details and improve the papers academic merit.
Not approvedFundamental flaws in the paper seriously undermine the findings and conclusions
Version 2
VERSION 2
PUBLISHED 22 Jul 2020
Revised
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15
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Reviewer Report 02 Sep 2020
Amir H. Pakpour, Research Institute for Prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran 
Approved
VIEWS 15
The authors have addressed my ... Continue reading
CITE
CITE
HOW TO CITE THIS REPORT
Pakpour AH. Reviewer Report For: A dataset for the perceived vulnerability to disease scale in Japan before the spread of COVID-19 [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]. F1000Research 2020, 9:334 (https://doi.org/10.5256/f1000research.28113.r67735)
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
Version 1
VERSION 1
PUBLISHED 06 May 2020
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28
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Reviewer Report 14 Jul 2020
Amir H. Pakpour, Research Institute for Prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran 
Approved with Reservations
VIEWS 28
Dear Author(s),
Please 
  1. The aim of this study is vague. The abstract is incomplete and the results and the method parts are not accessible. In addition to this, your keywords are not able to reflect the
... Continue reading
CITE
CITE
HOW TO CITE THIS REPORT
Pakpour AH. Reviewer Report For: A dataset for the perceived vulnerability to disease scale in Japan before the spread of COVID-19 [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]. F1000Research 2020, 9:334 (https://doi.org/10.5256/f1000research.26163.r64012)
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
  • Author Response 22 Jul 2020
    Yuki Yamada, Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
    22 Jul 2020
    Author Response
    Thank you for reviewing our data paper. We were happy to address each comment.
     
    1. The aim of this study is vague. The abstract is incomplete and the results ... Continue reading
COMMENTS ON THIS REPORT
  • Author Response 22 Jul 2020
    Yuki Yamada, Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
    22 Jul 2020
    Author Response
    Thank you for reviewing our data paper. We were happy to address each comment.
     
    1. The aim of this study is vague. The abstract is incomplete and the results ... Continue reading
Views
46
Cite
Reviewer Report 26 May 2020
Shu Imaizumi, Institute for Education and Human Development, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan 
Approved
VIEWS 46
The authors provide a dataset of the PVD scale from a Japanese sample in September 2018, which would serve as a baseline for comparison with the PVD in the current and post COVID-19 situations. The study will give not only ... Continue reading
CITE
CITE
HOW TO CITE THIS REPORT
Imaizumi S. Reviewer Report For: A dataset for the perceived vulnerability to disease scale in Japan before the spread of COVID-19 [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]. F1000Research 2020, 9:334 (https://doi.org/10.5256/f1000research.26163.r63128)
NOTE: it is important to ensure the information in square brackets after the title is included in all citations of this article.
  • Author Response 22 Jul 2020
    Yuki Yamada, Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
    22 Jul 2020
    Author Response
    The authors provide a dataset of the PVD scale from a Japanese sample in September 2018, which would serve as a baseline for comparison with the PVD in the current ... Continue reading
COMMENTS ON THIS REPORT
  • Author Response 22 Jul 2020
    Yuki Yamada, Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
    22 Jul 2020
    Author Response
    The authors provide a dataset of the PVD scale from a Japanese sample in September 2018, which would serve as a baseline for comparison with the PVD in the current ... Continue reading

Comments on this article Comments (0)

Version 2
VERSION 2 PUBLISHED 06 May 2020
Comment
Alongside their report, reviewers assign a status to the article:
Approved - the paper is scientifically sound in its current form and only minor, if any, improvements are suggested
Approved with reservations - A number of small changes, sometimes more significant revisions are required to address specific details and improve the papers academic merit.
Not approved - fundamental flaws in the paper seriously undermine the findings and conclusions
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