Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, school of public health, College of Medicine and Health sciences, Wollo University, Dessie, Ethiopia.
Department of nutrition and dietetics, school of public health, College of Medicine and Health sciences, Wollo University, Dessie, Ethiopia.
PLoS One. 2021 Mar 1;16(3):e0247639. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247639. eCollection 2021.
Coronavirus-19 is a global health challenge and need an immediate action. Thus, understanding client's knowledge about SARS-COV2 causes, roots of transmissions, and prevention strategies are urgently warranted. Although there were global studies reported knowledge and preventive practices of COVID-19, but the information is not representative and inclusive for Ethiopia. Thus, the current study is done to identify the knowledge and the prevention strategies for COVID-19 among clients in South Wollo, Ethiopia.
An institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted from May 21 to 30, 2020 among clients seeking service in Dessie town health facilities. A total of 81 clients were included from the selected health facilities with simple random sampling technique. We developed measuring tools by adopting from World Health Organization and center for disease prevention recommendation manual for assessing service providers' knowledge and preventive practices. For data entry Epi-data 3.1 version was employed and further data management and analysis was performed using STATA Version 14. Student T-test and one way ANOVA were computed to see the mean difference in knowledge and practice between and among the group. Chi-square test was also done to portray the presence of association between different co-variants with client's knowledge and preventive practices.
Findings of the study showed that more than half (56.8%) of the participants had good knowledge about its symptoms, way of spread and prevention of the virus. Furthermore, 65.4% of clients demonstrated five or more preventive practice measures of COVID-19. The mean preventive practice score with standard deviation was (4.75±1.28 from 6 components). In the current study, knowledge had no significant difference among sex, education status, and monthly income. However, COVID-19 transmission knowledge was significantly higher among urban residents. Thus, clients who were knowledgeable about way of transmission and symptoms of COVID-19 had significantly higher COVID-19 preventive practice.
Our findings revealed that clients' knowledge and preventive practice of COVID-19 were not optimal. Clients with good knowledge and urban residents had practiced better prevention measures of the pandemic, signifying that packages and programs directed in enhancing knowledge about the virus is useful in combating the pandemic and continuing safe practices.
冠状病毒-19 是一个全球性的健康挑战，需要立即采取行动。因此，了解客户对 SARS-COV2 病因、传播根源和预防策略的认识是非常必要的。尽管已经有全球研究报告了 COVID-19 的知识和预防措施，但这些信息并不代表和涵盖埃塞俄比亚的情况。因此，目前的研究旨在确定南沃洛客户对 COVID-19 的知识和预防策略。
这是一项于 2020 年 5 月 21 日至 30 日在德西镇医疗机构就诊的客户中进行的基于机构的横断面研究。采用简单随机抽样技术从选定的医疗机构中抽取了 81 名客户。我们通过采用世界卫生组织和疾病预防控制中心推荐的手册来制定测量工具，以评估服务提供者的知识和预防措施。使用 Epi-data 3.1 版本进行数据输入，使用 STATA 版本 14 进行进一步的数据管理和分析。学生 t 检验和单向方差分析用于比较和比较组之间知识和实践的平均差异。卡方检验也用于描述不同协变量与客户知识和预防实践之间的关联。
研究结果表明，超过一半（56.8%）的参与者对其症状、传播途径和预防病毒有很好的了解。此外，65.4%的客户表现出五种或更多 COVID-19 的预防措施。从 6 个组成部分来看，平均预防实践分数为（4.75±1.28）。在本研究中，知识在性别、教育程度和月收入方面没有显著差异。然而，城市居民对 COVID-19 的传播知识要高得多。因此，对 COVID-19 传播途径和症状有更多了解的客户，其 COVID-19 预防措施也明显更好。
我们的研究结果表明，客户对 COVID-19 的知识和预防实践并不理想。知识渊博和城市居民的客户采取了更好的大流行预防措施，这表明针对提高对该病毒的认识的方案和计划在抗击大流行和持续安全实践方面是有用的。
