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.
Highlights
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
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2 belongs to the larger family of ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, leading to infections, from the common cold, to more serious diseases, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV) [2]
After excluding 39 respondents who reported living outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the final sample consisted of 3,388 participants
Summary
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. COVID-19 is an emerging respiratory infection that was first discovered in December 2019, in Wuhan city, Hubei Province, China [1]. COVID-19 is characterized by rapid transmission, and can occur by close contact with an infected person [5,6,7,8,9]. The details on the disease are evolving As such, this may not be the only way the transmission is occurring. By the end of January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a public health emergency of international concern and called for the collaborative effort of all countries, to prevent its rapid spread. The WHO declared COVID-19 a “global pandemic” [11]
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