A cross-sectional study on awareness, attitude and perception of COVID 19 among the people of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been accepted as a pandemic by the World Health Organization in the month of March 2020. Globally many efforts have been made to inhibit the spread of the disease through various strategies to create public awareness and changing personal behaviors. According to WHO report as on 2nd of October 2020, the mortality was 34,079,542 and morbidity rate of 1,015,963. In Saudi Arabia, there are 335,578 positive cases of coronavirus, 4,823 deaths and 320,348 recovered from illness. Keeping this in view, the present study was conducted to understand the level of awareness, attitude and perception regarding prevention and control of COVID 19 among people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Methods: Quantitative research approach was adopted with Cross sectional descriptive research design. Data was collected through the online semi structured questionnaire. The questionnaire has four sections including demographic variable, awareness, attitude and perception. The analysis is based on 301 respondents from 13 regions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data. Findings: COVID 19 outbreak threaten the life and wellbeing of people around the world. The study finding shows that the people of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have adequate awareness in various component of corona virus with positive attitude and good practices with regard to disease spread. Also, majority of young people mentioned that they attained awareness from social media, whereas the other age group mentioned as MOH as the major source of information. Hence, constant public educational campaign with various sources have added advantage with present outcome. Novelty: While COVID 19 outbreak threaten the life and wellbeing of people around the world, it’s vital to constantly create awareness in cause, spread, treatment and prevention to control its impact further. Keywords: COVID 19; awareness; attitude; practice; Coronavirus