Association of known SARS-CoV-2 serostatus and adherence to personal protection measures and the impact of personal protective measures on seropositivity in a population-based cross-sectional study (MuSPAD) in Germany

Abstract

Background

In 2020/2021 in Germany, several non-pharmacological interventions were introduced to lower the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We investigated to what extent knowledge of prior infection with SARS-CoV-2 or vaccination status influenced the use of personal protection measures (PPM). Further, we were interested in the effect of compliance with PPM on SARS-CoV-2 serostatus.

Methods

Data was based on a sequential, multilocal seroprevalence study (MuSPAD), carried out in eight locations from July 2020 to August 2021. We estimated the association between a known SARS-CoV-2 serostatus (reported positive PCR test or vaccination) and self-reported PPM behavior (hand hygiene, physical distancing, wearing face mask), just as the association of PPM compliance with seropositivity against nucleocapsid (NC), receptor-binding domain (RBD), and spike protein (S) antigens. We identified relevant variables and deduced adjustment sets with directed acyclic graphs (DAG), and applied mixed logistic regression.

Results

Out of the 22,297 participants (median age: 54 years, 43% male), 781 were classified as SARS-CoV-2-infected and 3,877 had a vaccinated immune response. Vaccinated individuals were less likely to keep 1.5 m distance [OR = 0.74 (95% CI: 0.57–0.97)] and only partly physically distanced [OR = 0.71 (95% CI: 0.58–0.87)]. Participants with self-reported positive PCR test had a lower chance of adhering partly to physical distancing [OR = 0.70 (95% CI: 0.50–0.99)] in comparison to the reference group. Higher odds of additionally wearing a face mask was observed in vaccinated [OR = 1.28 (95% CI: 1.08–1.51)] even if it was not obligatory. Overall, among unvaccinated participants, we found little evidence of lower odds of seropositivity given mask wearing [OR: 0.91 (95% CI: 0.71–1.16)], physical distancing [OR: 0.84 (95% CI: 0.59–1.20)] and no evidence for completely adhering to hand cleaning [OR: 0.97 (95% CI: 0.29–3.22)].

Conclusions

A known confirmed prior infection and vaccination may have the potential to influence adherence to PPM.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-023-17121-5.