Knowledge, attitude and practices related to COVID-19 among young Lebanese population

Abstract

Background: As the world faces the most serious and widespread pandemic in recent history, claiming nearly 700,000 lives and infecting close to 17 million individuals, controlling the spread of COVID-19 is still limited to efforts done by the general population implementing rules and restrictions passed by world governments and organizations. Awaiting the development of a cure or a vaccine, the best approach to fighting the spread of this disease is mostly preventative depending largely on individuals’ compliance. This study aims to test the KAP towards COVID-19 in Lebanon. Methods: A cross-sectional study of Lebanese population comprising of 1861 participants was used to analyze the knowledge, attitude and practices of individuals concerning COVID-19 in relationship to multiple variables such as age, gender, marital status, living area, education level, occupation in addition to their degree of worrying about this disease. Results: Our participants showed an overall appropriate knowledge (67.1%), positive attitude and practices that ranged from fair to very good, depending on its type, regarding COVID-19. When the components of KAP were analyzed with respect to variables, we found that levels of knowledge and practices positively correlated with people who were ever married, older, with higher degrees, worked in a healthcare field and with the degree of worry about getting COVID-19. Conclusions: In the absence of a vaccine, pandemics such as the current COVID-19 are best combatted by increasing public awareness leading to collective preventative practices. A key factor in this effort lies in creating a good environment that enhances people’s compliance with considerate pandemic behavioral rules in which governing bodies must be pivotal.

Pregnant women’s knowledge, attitude, and practice towards COVID-19 infection prevention in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The level of attitude towards COVID-19 among pregnant mothers was found 62.46%, which is comparable with a study conducted in a low‐resource African setting 60.9% [ 35 ]. However, it is lower than the study conducted among the young Lebanese population 90% [ 36 ]. The discrepancy might be due to differences in study population and study variable measurement.…”

Communication, information, and knowledge in the pandemic by COVID-19 in Brazil

“…[28] Another systematic review and meta-analysis of 84 studies from 45 countries or territories, that comprised a total of 215,731 participants, has found that knowledge scores ranged from 72% for low-income countries to 79% for upper-middle-income countries and reported a pooled knowledge score of 75%. [29] On the other hand, similar studies from Malaysia, [30] India, [31] Lebanon, [32] and China [33] have found somewhat lower knowledge levels about COVID-19, but not as low as that observed in a study conducted in Bangladesh, which showed that only 33% of the participants had a good level of knowledge about COVID-19. [34] The fact that during this study's data collection period, Brazil had one of the fastest-growing COVID-19 epidemics in the world, [2] which resulted in it being the country with most cases and deaths in Latin America, [35] and the intense coverage of the pandemic by Brazilian mainstream media, with high-quality content due to the participation of well-known researchers and health professionals, [36] might explain the high level of knowledge found in this study.…”

“…[28] Another systematic review and meta-analysis of 84 studies from 45 countries or territories, that comprised a total of 215,731 participants, has found that knowledge scores ranged from 72% for low-income countries to 79% for upper-middle-income countries and reported a pooled knowledge score of 75%. [29] On the other hand, similar studies from Malaysia, [30] India, [31] Lebanon, [32] and China [33] have found somewhat lower knowledge levels about COVID-19, but not as low as that observed in a study conducted in Bangladesh, which showed that only 33% of the participants had a good level of knowledge about COVID-19. [34]…”

“…Several studies from all around the world have already shown that people with a higher level of education would be better informed about the pandemic. [27][28][29][31][32][33][45][46][47] Therefore, those with lower education levels should be the focus of intensive education interventions using target group-specific educational approaches. It should be noted, however, that, unlike the participants of this research, <50% and 10% of the Brazilian population complete their medium and higher education, respectively.…”

Too much to mask: determinants of sustained adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures among older Syrian refugees in Lebanon

“…Daoust (2020) identified the correlates of compliance with preventive measures across 27 countries, with a focus on older adults. In the context of Lebanon, some work has tried to identify correlates of adherence to preventive measures (Domiati et al, 2020), sometimes for some subpopulations (Abou-Abbas et al, 2020; Nasser et al, 2020; Sakr et al, 2021), while other work has looked at the role of specific interventions in affecting or mediating adherence (Melki et al, 2020).…”