Knowledge and Awareness of General People about Covid19 Infection, an Online Study in Eastern India

Abstract

Background: The biggest pandemic of this decade has caused global, social, and economic disruption (1).Misinformation spread via news and social media has created widespread xenophobia, discrimination, fear,misbehavior to people, doctors, other health care workers (2) . All these factors put a huge burden on the mentalhealth of the population. In this background, we tried to assess the awareness about covid 19 after about one yearof struggle during the second wave.Methodology: An anonymous questionnaire was prepared by the Department of Psychiatry of College of Medicine& Sagore Dutta Hospital,Kolkata. The Questionnaire includes basic knowledge of the people, epidemiologicalcharacteristics, anxiety, and depression. The Questionnaire circulated through the online platform. Responseswere recorded in the excel sheet.Result: Most of the respondents (594, 98.7%) know that Covid 19 is a viral disease. 82.6% (497) people believethat the most important aspect of this disease is infectivity and not mortality (93,15.4%). 80.6% believe that handwashing, social distancing, lockdown all three are essential in containing the disease. Most of the participants werehappy with the steps taken by Government.Discussion: Most of the participants in this study knew that covid 19 is a viral infection and the important aspectof the disease is infectivity, not mortality. So the majority of the persons were aware of the basic pathology of thedisease. And they believe that safety measures will restrict disease.