Syed Azhar Syed SULAIMAN, Narendar KUMAR, Furqan Khurshid HASHMI

An evaluation of public understanding regarding COVID19 in Sindh, Pakistan: A focus on knowledge, attitudes and practices

Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a global crisis. Inadequate knowledge, inapt attitude, and malpractice may enhance the risk of disease. Therefore, we aimed to explore the knowledge and behaviors of the people towards COVID-19 in Sindh, Pakistan, that can further help the government to enforce the SOPs for better containment strategy. A cross sectional study was conducted in Sindh, Pakistan during the month of December, 2020 using convenience sampling method. A pre-designed and pre-validated online survey consisting of 30 questions on knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) regarding COVID-19 was used for data collection. Among 1004 respondents, accuracy of knowledge response ranged from 20.7% to 95.2% and average rate was 62.2%. For attitude, the percentage of positive responses ranged from 16.9% to 49.5% and average value was 34.88%. The range for good practice was 15.0% to 91.4% and the average was 67.4%. The statistical analysis results showed the significant differences between the responses of each participant for knowledge, attitude, and practices towards COVID-19 (P = 0.001). Our study concluded that majority of people of Sindh, Pakistan have good knowledge, average attitude, and proactive practices regarding COVID-19 but still there is a need for implementing strategies for enhancing knowledge and practices.

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