MOST Scots are following the Scottish Government’s FACTS guidance on precautions to limit the spread of Covid-19, according to scientists, although women are better than men and young people at observing them.

The findings came from a team at Aberdeen University who have been researching how well people in Scotland have been adopting the preventative behaviours. It is part of the nationwide Covid-19 Health and Adherence Research in Scotland (CHARIS) project.

The results – presented at the UK Society for Behavioural Medicine conference – came after thousands of Scottish volunteers were interviewed from last June to establish if they were adhering to the guidance to maintain a tw-metre distance, wear face coverings and wash hands regularly.

During this stage of the project, the team from the university’s Institute of Applied Health Sciences have focused on adherence – how well people are sticking to the rules and identifying if there are groups who may be less likely to comply.

In general, the health psychologists found the recommended measures were being followed by the majority of adults living in Scotland, but there is room for improvement.

Professor Diane Dixon found some groups – specifically, men and young people – are less likely to follow the guidance and are identified as important groups to target for improvement.

“These initial results are encouraging in the sense that the majority of people in Scotland are adhering to the behaviours designed to protect ourselves and others from Covid-19,” she said.

“However, our work also found that there are groups of people – men and young people, for whom this behaviour change may be proving more difficult.

“Although preliminary at this stage, it does suggest that these groups may benefit from more targeted campaigns and messaging to promote this behaviour change.”

The team also developed a new way to measure whether people are following the guidance – the adherence scale – which is expected to be adopted by researchers all over the world.

Dr Chantal den Daas, who devised the scale said: “Having this new measurement means that we have a way in which we can look [at] how things are going over time, as government directions change, or as sentiment change, as people get tired of the new restrictions.

“We are also able to use it to identify groups who adhere less and explore what predicts adherence. Finally, the score can be used to predict adherence to other behaviours.”

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman welcomed the research and added: “Adherence to guidance and rules is a collective effort and, while it has been an extremely difficult period for everybody, we will get there faster if we all stick together.”