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The present study aims to determine the preventive behaviors from the disease based on constructs of the health belief model. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a new viral disease that has caused a pandemic in the world. Due to the lack of vaccines and defnitive treatment, preventive behaviors are the only way to overcome the disease.

In the present cross-sectional study during March 11–16, 2020, 750 individuals in Golestan Province of Iran were included in the study using the convenience sampling and they completed the questionnaires through cyberspace. Factor scores were calculated using the confrmatory factor analysis. The efects of diferent factors were separately investigated using the univariate analyses, including students sample t-test, ANOVA, and simple linear regression. Finally, the effective factors were examined by the multiple regression analysis at a signifcant level of 0.05 and through Mplus 7 and SPSS 16.

Results show that the participants’ mean age was 33.9 ± 9.45 years; and 57.1% of them had associate and bachelor’s degrees. Multiple regression indicated that the mean score of preventive behavior from COVID-19 was higher in females than males, and greater in urban dwellers than rural dwellers. Furthermore, one unit increase in the standard deviation of factor scores of self-efcacy and perceived benefts increased the scores of preventive behavior from COVID-19 by 0.22 and 0.17 units respectively. On the contrary, one unit increase in the standard deviation of factor score of perceived barriers and fatalistic beliefs decreased the scores of the preventive behavior from COVID-19 by 0.36 and 0.19 units respectively.

To summarize the results, the present study indicates that

• female gender
• perceived barriers
• perceived self-efcacy
• fatalistic beliefs
• perceived interests
• and living in city

had the greatest preventive behaviors from COVID-19 respectively.