Knowledge and awareness-based survey of COVID-19 within the eye care profession in Nepal: Misinformation is hiding the truth

  1. Sandip Das Sanyam
  2. Sanjay Kumar Sah
  3. Pankaj Chaudhary
  4. Matthew J. Burton
  5. Jeremy J. Hoffman

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Abstract

Nepal was under a severe lockdown for several months in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There were concerns regarding misinformation circulating on social media. This study aimed to analyse the knowledge and awareness of COVID-19 amongst eye care professionals in Nepal during the first wave of the pandemic.

Methodology

We invited 600 participants from 12 ophthalmic centres across Nepal to complete a qualitative, anonymous online survey. Altogether, 25 questions (both open and closed-ended) were used. An overall performance score was calculated from the average of the 12 “Knowledge” questions for all the participants.

Results

Of the 600 eye care professionals invited, 310 (51%) participated in the survey. The symptoms of COVID-19 were known to 94%, whilst only 49% of the participants were aware how the disease was transmitted, with 54% aware that anyone can be infected with SARS-CoV-2. Almost 98% of participants recognized the World Health Organization’s (WHO) awareness message, but surprisingly, 41% of participants felt that consumption of hot drinks helps to destroy the virus, in contradiction to WHO information. Importantly, 95% of the participants were aware of personal protective equipment (PPE) and what the acronym stands for. Social distancing was felt to be key to limiting the disease spread; whilst 41% disagreed that PPE should be mandatory for eye care practitioners. The mean overall “Knowledge” performance score was 69.65% (SD ± 22.81).

Conclusion

There is still considerable scope to improve the knowledge of COVID-19 amongst ophthalmic professionals in Nepal. Opinion is also split on measures to prevent transmission, with misinformation potentially fuelling confusion. It is recommended to follow WHO and national guidelines, whilst seeking published scientific evidence behind any unofficial statements, to accurately inform one’s clinical practice.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0254761
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.06.20123505: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: This study conformed to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki, with a mandatory consent form that had to be completed before commencing the survey.
    RandomizationRepresentatives from a random selection of 12 of the 18 secondary or tertiary eye hospitals in Nepal were contacted and asked to select 50 individuals at their institution randomly, who were then invited to complete the survey.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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:
    There are some potential limitations to this study. Although we selected participants at random from the main eye hospitals in Nepal, only just over half of all those invited responded to the survey. This may cause a degree of selection bias. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic is a rapidly evolving situation, which means that some of the “correct” answers to our survey that were accurate at the time of questioning, may have changed by the time of analysis. The strength of this study is that this is the only such study to have been conducted in Nepal, within a short timeframe.

    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

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.06.20123505v1 on medRxiv