National governments took action to delay the transmission of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) by implementing different containment measures. We developed an online survey that included 44 different containment measures. We aimed to assess how effective citizens perceive these measures, which measures are perceived as violation of citizens' personal freedoms, which opinions and demographic factors have an effect on compliance with the measures, and what governments can do to most effectively improve citizens' compliance. The survey was disseminated in 11 countries: UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, India, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Sweden. We acquired 9543 unique responses. Our findings show significant differences across countries in perceived effectiveness, restrictiveness, and compliance. Governments that suffer low levels of trust should put more effort into persuading citizens, especially men, in the effectiveness of the proposed measures. They should provide financial compensation to citizens who have lost their job or income due to the containment measures to improve measure compliance. Policymakers should implement the least restrictive and most effective public health measures first during pandemic emergencies instead of implementing a combination of many restrictive measures, which has the opposite effect on citizens' adherence and undermines human rights.

Centre for Mental Health and Society Bangor University Bangor LL57 2DG UK

Clinical Department of Medicine GE Palade University of Medicine Pharmacy Science and Technology 540142 Târgu Mureș Romania

Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology New Bulgarian University 1618 Sofia Bulgaria

Department of Criminology University of Gavle 80176 Gävle Sweden

Department of Nursing Science University of Turku 20500 Turku Finland

Department of Psychiatry Government Medical College Mysore 570001 India

Faculty of Health Sciences Jagiellonian University Medical College Krakow 31 008 Kraków Poland

Faculty of Medicine Medical College Latvian University in Riga LV 1079 Riga Latvia

Mysore Medical College and Research Institute Karnataka 570001 India

Paramedic Department Medical College Prague 121 08 Prague Czech Republic

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