Knowledge, Attitude, and Self-Reported Practice Toward Measures for Prevention of the Spread of COVID-19 Among Ugandans: A Nationwide Online Cross-Sectional Survey

  1. Robinson Ssebuufu
  2. Franck Katembo Sikakulya
  3. Simon Binezero Mambo
  4. Lucien Wasingya
  5. Sifa K. Nganza
  6. Bwaga Ibrahim
  7. Patrick Kyamanywa

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Abstract

Background: The world is facing the Coronavirus pandemic, which is highly infectious. Several measures have been put in place to prevent its spread among the population. However, for these preventive measures to be effective, the population requires appropriate and sufficient knowledge, attitude, and practices. Thus, a survey to assess knowledge, attitude, and self-reported practice toward measures for prevention of the spread of COVID-19 was conducted among Ugandans.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among during the lockdown in Uganda. An online structured questionnaire was used, applying a snowballing sampling approach for recruitment of participants 18 years and above and residing in Uganda. Data collection was done from 6th to 15th April 2020, during which 1,763 people participated. We analyzed all data using STATA 14.2, applying appropriate statistical tests.

Results: Out of 1,763 participants, 80% were highly knowledgeable. For attitude, 72.4% reported following recommendations given by the Ministry of health to prevent the spread of COVID-19; 89.0% were worried about contracting COVID-19 and 73.3% agreed that COVID-19 can be cured and 99.3% reported good practice toward measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. According to ordered logistic regression, health workers were 6 times more knowledgeable [aOR:6 (3.51–10.09), p < 0.001] followed by teachers [aOR:5.2 (2.6–10.32), p < 0.001]; students [aOR:3.2 (1.96–5.33), p < 0.001]. On the contrary, the drivers, business entrepreneurs, and security personnel had less knowledge.

Conclusion: The results show that the participating Ugandans were knowledgeable and had a positive attitude and good practices. However, there is still a gap in knowledge among drivers, business entrepreneurs, and security personnel. Therefore, there is a need to mobilize the country's population to have the same degree of knowledge, which will have an impact on the attitude and practices toward prevention of the spread of COVID-19.

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  1. Version published to 10.3389/fpubh.2020.618731
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.05.20092247: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: 2.3 Data collection and instrument: For a period of ten days from 6th to 15th April 2020, an online snowball sampling technique was used with a semi-structured questionnaire which was developed using Google forms (https://docs.google.com/forms/d718Ded-NFe65B6HnTFCwe4XzxBA-o3VfcJYogRjgcMsAA/edit), with a consent form appended to it.
    IRB: 2.5 Ethical considerations: Ethical clearance for the survey was obtained from the Institutional Research Ethical Committee of Kampala International University in Uganda (UG-REC-023/201914).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    2.4 Data processing and analysis plan: The raw data was cleaned and entered into Microsoft excel and exported into STATA 14.2 for processing.
    Microsoft excel
    suggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)
    STATA
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    In addition to the limited sample representativeness, the other limitation of this survey was the inadequate assessment of attitudes towards COVID-19, which should be developed via focus group discussion and in-depth interview and constructed as multi-dimensional measures. But this was not possible due to the lockdown in the country during the survey period and as one of strategies observed by all population in the country was social distancing to avoid the spread of the COVID-19.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.05.20092247 on medRxiv