Abstract
AimThis study aimed to assess knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) toward COVID-19 among youth in Bangladesh.Subject and methodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted from 5 May to 25 May 2020. People aged between 18 and 35 years were approached via social media to complete an online questionnaire that consisted of socio-demographic information and KAP toward COVID-19. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and logistic regression analyses were conducted.ResultsOut of 707 survey participants, 57.1% were male, the majority were students (60.3%), aged 24-29 years (61.5%), having a bachelor’s degree (57%), having family income 25,000-50,000 BDT (40.5%) and living in urban areas (64.4%). Participants gathered information on COVID-19 mostly through social media (70.4%). Overall, 61.2% had adequate knowledge with 78.9% having a positive attitudes toward COVID-19 and only 51.6% had good practices. Most (86.8%) of the participants were confident that COVID-19 will be successfully controlled and Bangladesh was handling the COVID-19 health crisis well (84.2%). Only 75.2% of participants always washed their hands with soap or hand-sanitizer, and 70.6% wore a mask when going outside the home. Factors associated with adequate knowledge were being female, having a master’s degree and above, and living in an urban area (p < 0.05). Participants having adequate knowledge of COVID-19 had higher likelihood of positive attitudes (OR: 6.41, 95% CI = 2.34–25.56, p < 0.001) and good practices (OR: 8.93, 95% CI = 3.92–38.42, p < 0.001).ConclusionThe findings highlight the need for tailored education programs for COVID-19 which incorporates consideration of associated factors to improve the level of public knowledge, attitudes, and practices.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has evolved into a serious public health concern due to a novel human coronavirus, commonly recognized as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which has been declared as a pandemic (Cucinotta and Vanelli 2020; Lake 2020)
The KAP study regarding COVID-19 conducted in Hubei, China, concealed that public attitudes to obedience to government measures to combat the epidemic were significantly influenced by the level of knowledge about COVID-19 (Zhong et al 2020)
Social media such as Facebook was the main source of knowledge about COVID19 among participants (n = 498, 70.4%) followed by news media (66.3%), and internet (58.7%; Fig. 1)
Summary
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has evolved into a serious public health concern due to a novel human coronavirus, commonly recognized as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which has been declared as a pandemic (Cucinotta and Vanelli 2020; Lake 2020). The KAP study regarding COVID-19 conducted in Hubei, China, concealed that public attitudes to obedience to government measures to combat the epidemic were significantly influenced by the level of knowledge about COVID-19 (Zhong et al 2020). In Bangladesh, a KAP study showed that a large proportion of people had limited knowledge of COVID-19 transmission and onset of symptoms and had positive perceptions of COVID-19 (Farhana 2020). Another Bangladeshi study found that despite 54–87% of respondents having access to good knowledge, the attitude and practices were not impressive mainly because of poor knowledge, nonscientific, and orthodox religious belief (Haque et al 2020)
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