Background: An emerging respiratory disease was abbreviated as COVID 19, after it has been first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan city of China. The virus is zoonotic which has a tendency to be transmitted between animal to human and human to human. The major route of transmission of COVID-19 is droplet and close contact. Ethiopian ministry of health has initiated training for health care workers at a different level. WHO and CDC also initiated a multidisciplinary approach to tackle COVID-19 of which awareness creation is the main. Thus, the main objective of this study is to assess knowledge, attitude, and practices of health workers in Ethiopia towards COVID-19 and its prevention techniques.Method: an institutional-based multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted in each of eight teaching and referral hospitals. A total of 422 Ethiopian healthcare workers were selected for the assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practice towards COVID-19. Socio-demographic characteristics and data related to the KAP of the participants were collected using a structured questionnaire Logistic regression model was used to identify factors associated with the attitude and knowledge of healthcare workers towards COVID-19 at a significance level of p<0.05.Result: Three hundred ninety-seven healthcare workers participated in the study with a response rate of 94%. Among these, 88.2% and 94.7% of respondents had good knowledge and positive attitude respectively. A respondent with history of chronic medical illness (OR: 0.193, 95% CI: 0.063-0.593), social media, telecommunication, and television/radio as a source of information were significantly associated with knowledge (OR: 3.4, 95% CI: 1.5-7.4, OR: 4.3, 95% CI: 1.3-14.3 and OR: 3.2, 95% CI: 1.4-7.2). Additionally respondent with history of chronic medical illness was significantly associated with negative attitude towards COVID-19.Conclusion: The overall level of knowledge and attitude was good. However, the practice was relatively low. Source of information like social media, telecommunication, and television/radio were positively associated with healthcare workers' knowledge about COVID-19. Strategies for enhancing the capacity of healthcare workers to develop practice are needed.Keyword: COVID-19, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, Healthcare worker, Ethiopia

Background: An emerging respiratory disease abbreviated as coronavirus disease 2019 was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan city of China. The virus is zoonotic and tends to be transmitted between animals to humans and humans to humans. The major route of transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 is droplet and close contact. The Ethiopian Ministry of Health has initiated training for health care workers at a different level. Thus, the main objective of this study is to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of health workers in Ethiopia toward coronavirus disease 2019 and its prevention techniques. Method: An institution-based multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted in each of eight teaching and referral hospitals. A total of 422 Ethiopian healthcare workers were selected for the assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practice toward coronavirus disease 2019. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. A logistic regression model was used to identify factors associated with the attitude and knowledge of healthcare workers toward coronavirus disease 2019 at a significance level of p < 0.05. Result: Three hundred ninety-seven healthcare workers participated in the study, with a response rate of 94%. Among these, 88.2% and 94.7% of respondents had good knowledge and positive attitudes, respectively. A respondent with a history of chronic medical illness (odds ratio: 0.193, 95% confidence interval: 0.063–0.593), social media, telecommunication, and television/radio as a source of information were significantly associated with knowledge (odds ratio: 3.4, 95% confidence interval: 1.5–7.4, OR: 4.3, 95% confidence interval: 1.3–14.3 and odds ratio: 3.2, 95% confidence interval: 1.4–7.2). In addition, respondents with a history of chronic medical illness were significantly associated with a negative attitude toward coronavirus disease 2019. Conclusion: The knowledge and attitude were good while; the practice was relatively low. Sources of information such as social media, telecommunication, and television/radio were positively associated with healthcare workers' knowledge about coronavirus disease 2019.

Background: COVID-19 first broke out in china, Hubei province on December 29, 2019. Since then it took more than hundred thousand lives worldwide. Although all countries are taking varying degree of measures to curb the dissemination, the virus is still spreading rapidly in all part of the world. Adherence of peoples for COVID-19 precautions measures is one of the most important factors which determine the effectiveness of curbing the spread. However without having good attitude adherence of people toward precaution measures could be challenging. Therefore the aim of this study is to assess the attitude, practice and associated factors of southern Ethiopian residents toward COVID-19 and its prevention. Methods: A community based cross sectional study was conducted among 585 Southern Ethiopian residents. Bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression was used to determine association between dependent and independent variables. Adjusted odds ratio with their 95% CI was used show the strength of association. P-value < 0.05 was used to decide statistically significant association.Result: Most of the study participants (90.3%) have good attitude toward COVID-19 and its prevention. Being younger age group, having chronic medical illness, using television as a source of information and having good knowledge were significantly associated with good attitude toward COVID-19.On other hand; only 20% of the study participants have good practice toward COVID-19 prevention. Educational status, occupation and having chronic medical illness, uses of religious teaching as information sources are associated factors for good practice against COVID-19 infection. Conclusion: We conclude that despite the presence good attitude in majority of respondents much work needed to improve rare practice of COVID-19 preventive measures.

Background: COVID-19 first broke out in China, Hubei province on December 29, 2019, since then it took hundreds of thousand lives worldwide. Although all countries are taking varying degrees of measures to curb the dissemination, the virus is still spreading rapidly in all parts of the world. Adherence of people for COVID-19 precaution measures is one of the most important factors which determine the effectiveness of curbing the spread. However, without having a good attitude, the adherence of people toward precaution measures could be challenging. Therefore, this study aims to assess the attitude, practice, and associated factors of Gedeo zone of Southern Ethiopia region residents toward COVID-19 and its prevention. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 600 Gedeo zone residents of Southern Ethiopia. Bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression were used to determine the association between dependent and independent variables. An adjusted odds ratio with 95% CI was used to show the strength of association. P-value<0.05 was used to decide a statistically significant association. Results: Most of the study participants (90.3%) have a good attitude toward COVID-19 and its prevention. Being a younger age group (AOR=3.82, 95% CI=1.76-19.07), having a diploma and above (AOR=2.53, 95% CI=1.15-7.50), having a chronic medical illness (AOR=2.73, 95% CI=1.01-7.44), and using television/radio as a source of information (AOR=2.65, 95% CI=1.27-5.54) were significantly associated with a good attitude toward COVID-19. On the other hand, only 20% of the study participants had good practice toward COVID-19 prevention. Educational status (P-value=0.00), occupation (P-value=0.01), and having a chronic medical illness (P-value=0.03), and use of religious teaching as information sources (P-value=0.02) were among the factors associated with good practice toward COVID-19 infection. Conclusion: We conclude that, despite the presence of a good attitude in the majority of respondents, much work is needed to improve the poor practice of COVID-19 preventive measures.

No abstract