Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (Kap) Toward Covid-19: A Cross-Sectional Study in Rural Pakistan

Abstract

Covid-19 has quickly transformed the lifestyles and behaviors of people across the globe. It has claimed millions of lives worldwide and thousands in Pakistan. Pakistan’s national response to the pandemic was effective despite limited resources. The nature of this pandemic was unique and hardly experienced by human beings over the last century. In the absence of an effective cure and reliable vaccination, this pandemic had the potential to devastate human cultures and economies. The only thing that worked before the advent of vaccination has been the use of masks and social distancing. The adoption of these measures by hundreds of millions of people without adequate knowledge was a gigantic task. Therefore, it was important to explore the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of people during the current pandemic to know community tendencies and actual behaviors during emergencies. The study area for the current study was three districts from South Punjab namely Khanewal, Rahimyar Khan and DG Khan. The study employed univariate and bivariate analysis on cross sectional data collected through a well-structured questionnaire and analyzed in SPSS. After the reliability tests the generated results highlighted that rural people in South Punjab had knowledge of the pandemic, their attitude was positive towards the pandemic however, adoption of precautionary practices was restricted mainly due to socio-economic conditions of rural people in South Punjab. Hence study concluded the adoption of precautionary measures greatly depends upon socio-economic factors like age, gender, education and economic status. The study also highlighted that aggressive media campaigns and structured policy response from the government could lead to quick behavioral transformation among the rural people.