Neither age nor gender contributed significant variation to the association between Trust in Formal information and Self-efficacy, and Self-efficacy and hand hygiene. These findings are consistent with other studies showing self-efficacy is enhanced by procedural information [18, 19, 47, 48] and that attitudinally and actionoriented interventions are more successful in changing behaviour for communicable disease protection, such as in the case of HIV [24] . Similarly, exposure to relevant media stories during the 2009 A/H1N1influenza pandemic was associated with higher efficacy beliefs regarding hygiene, which in turn was associated with greater frequency of reported tissue access and sanitising gel purchase among British people [49] . However, there is evidence that coping style interacts with the ability of procedural information to enhance self-efficacy and under circumstances of high threat, such as during SARS-type epidemics where mortality is high, procedural information might be counter productive for some segments of the community who use an information avoidance (''blunting'') coping style [50] . Self-efficacy was only weakly associated with social distancing. People are limited in their ability to avoid crowds in Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated cities on earth, despite the Hong Kong government recommending this in order to limit the pandemic [51] . However, the relatively mild impact of A/H1N1 meant that people saw no reason to jeopardize their economic well-being and curtail other social activities, given such a low perceived threat [49, 52] . Hand washing was probably seen as sufficient protection.