Knowledge and Practices during the COVID-19 Outbreak in the Middle East: A Cross-Sectional Study

  1. Abdallah Naser
  2. Eman Dahmash
  3. Zahra Alsairafi
  4. Hassan Alwafi
  5. Hamad Alyami
  6. Zahraa Jalal
  7. Ahmed Al Rajeh
  8. Vibhu Paudyal
  9. Yosra Alhartani
  10. Fawaz Turkistani
  11. Fadi Hassanin

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Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the knowledge and practices of the general public in the Middle Eastern countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional study using an online survey was conducted between the 19th of March and the 6th of April 2020 in three Middle Eastern countries (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait) to explore the knowledge and practices of the Middle Eastern population regarding COVID-19. A previously developed questionnaire was adapted and used for this study. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify predictors of COVID-19 knowledge. Results: A total of 1208 participants (members of the public) participated from the three countries (Jordan = 389, Saudi Arabia = 433, and Kuwait = 386). The majority of participants (n = 810, 67.2%) were females aged 30 to 49 years (n = 501, 41.5%). Participants had moderate overall COVID-19 knowledge, with a mean (SD) score of 7.93 (±1.72) out of 12 (66.1%). Participants had better knowledge about disease prevention and control (83.0%), whereas the lowest sub-scale scores were for questions about disease transmission routes (43.3%). High education level was an important predictor of greater COVID-19 knowledge scores (p < 0.01). Conclusions: Further public education is needed to address the relatively low level of education regarding the transmission of COVID-19 in the Middle Eastern countries. Policymakers are recommended to develop informative COVID-19 related campaigns that specifically target young people (university students), unemployed individuals, and those with lower levels of education.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/ijerph18094699
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.13.20063560: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: All participants voluntarily participated in the study and were thus considered exempt from written informed consent.
    IRB: Ethical approval: This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee at Faculty of Pharmacy in Isra University, Amman, Jordan.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS (version 25).
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    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:
    Strengths and limitations: To the best of our knowledge this is the first study in the Arabic Speaking Middle Eastern countries that investigated the public knowledge and practices during COVID-19 pandemic. A strength of the study is that a large sample of participants were recruited during this critical period - the actual COVID-19 outbreak - and hence replies reflect the actual status. The participants were from three countries namely, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which increases the generalisability of these findings. Additionally, the use of previously used assessment tool that allowed comparison with other population was another strength of the study. However, there are some limitations. The study design itself, a cross-sectional survey design, limited our ability to identify causality between study variables. There are limited studies that assessed knowledge and practices of individuals during COVID-19 pandemic worldwide and in the Middle East specifically, which limited our ability to compare our findings with Arabic-speaking countries of a similar socioeconomic level and culture. In this study we employed a quantitative methodology with pre-set responses, which might not have allowed participants’ views to provide varied but useful qualitative information. In addition, we used an online survey for data collection and therefore, some vulnerable populations within the three countries under the COVID-19 pandemic could not be reached and we may have missed some of the...

    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 10.1101/2020.04.13.20063560v1 on medRxiv