Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Toward COVID-19 Among the Public in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Saudi Arabia has taken unprecedented and stringent preventive and precautionary measures against COVID-19 to control its spread, safeguard citizens and ensure their well-being. Public adherence to preventive measures is influenced by their knowledge and attitude toward COVID-19. This study investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the Saudi public, toward COVID-19, during the pandemic. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, using data collected via an online self-reported questionnaire, from 3,388 participants. To assess the differences in mean scores, and identify factors associated with knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward COVID-19, the data were run through univariate and multivariable regression analyses, respectively. Results: The majority of the study participants were knowledgeable about COVID-19. The mean COVID-19 knowledge score was 17.96 (SD = 2.24, range: 3-22), indicating a high level of knowledge. The mean score for attitude was 28.23 (SD = 2.76, range: 6-30), indicating optimistic attitudes. The mean score for practices was 4.34 (SD = 0.87, range: 0-5), indicating good practices. However, the results showed that men have less knowledge, less optimistic attitudes, and less good practice toward COVID-19, than women. We also found that older adults are likely to have better knowledge and practices, than younger people. Conclusions: Our finding suggests that targeted health education interventions should be directed to this particular vulnerable population, who may be at increased risk of contracting COVID-19. For example, COVID-19 knowledge may increase significantly if health education programs are specifically targeted at men.

Factors impacting social distancing measures for preventing coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19]: A systematic review

“…From a policy and public health perspective, current policies of at least 1 m physical distancing seem to be strongly associated with a large protective effect, and distances of 2 m could be more effective". ECDC report [57,p.3] highlighted that: "The success of social distancing measures that are implemented over an extended period may depend upon ensuring that people maintain social contact-from a distance-with friends, family and colleagues" as well as the strictness of quarantine adherence, household size, and highest rates of compliance [53,56]. Similar issues have also been reported by the ndings of our study.…”

“…The search results are summarised in Figure 1. In total, 1235 citations were identi ed, of which 16 were found to be relevant [39,40,[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] excluded 68 studies.…”

“…We found eight studies that evaluated differences across demographic and socio-economic strata, age and COVID-19 pandemic [39,[41][42][43]46,47,50,53]. These studies found that COVID-19 was often associated with people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) populations in lower socio-economic groups, employment in lower band/category, other comorbidities, exposure risks and older age.…”

“…This indicates participants' increasing concern towards personal hygienic measures. Awareness about COVID-19 is re ected in behaviour and attitude as most participants agreed with social distancing, avoiding travel, self-quarantine and adequate hygiene[48, p.4].Theme 3: Positive changes in people's behaviourWe found four studies (of 16) reported SDMs in uenced people's behaviour[39][40][41]53]. Atchison et al[39] reported that part of the success in early February 2020 was changing people's behaviour to comply with government actions.…”

Knowledge, attitude and practice of the Sudanese people towards COVID-19: An online survey

“…(12)the importance of this KAP study is to understand the characteristics of the community and their perception toward COVID-19, which will allow the authorities to take effective measures. (13) also the control of COVID-19 depends on the community commitment rather than health regulation so recognizing the existing perception and practices may help to identify attributes that in uence the public in adopting health practices and responsive behaviors (14) This study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices of the Sudanese population towards COVID-19 to date.…”