Abstract
Introduction
COVID-19, is a new virus that was first discovered in China and is rapidly spreading from person to person worldwide. COVID-19, which was declared a new pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, has become one of the leading public health concerns in the community due to its impacts on all sectors. This study aimed to identify the participants’ levels of knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to preventing Covid-19 and its sociodemographic determinants.
Methods
This study used existing data from the students’ Rapid Survey of the School of Public Health, NIPH. The study was conducted in January 2022 in the Phnom Krovanh district, Pursat Province. The developed questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 102 participants, both sexes, aged 18 to 59 years; data were collected via multistage cluster sampling for those living in their current locations in the last six months. High knowledge, positive attitudes, and good practices were defined based on the questionnaire scores for more than 75% of the total scores. The data analysis was performed using descriptive analysis and bivariate analysis in Stata V14.
Results
Among the 102 participants, the mean age was 38.2 years (SD = 12.8). Most of the participants (78.1%) were women, and 78.1% of them were married. More than half of the sample (51.0%) were in primary school (grades 1-6), and 35.3% were in junior high school or above. Overall, the interviewed participants had high knowledge (83.2%), a high percentage of positive attitudes (92.2%), and good practices (93.0%). Gender was the only variable that was associated with a high level of knowledge: women (87.5%) vs. men (68.8%), with a p value of 0.031.
Conclusion
This study revealed a high level of knowledge, a high positive attitude and a high level of good practices related to the COVID-19 outbreak in the surveyed community. Additionally, women were likely to have a greater level of high knowledge than men were. Therefore, disseminating health information to women in each family could be encouraged because women stay at home and play a major role in overseeing the whole family’s health care and well-being compared to men.?? In addition, it is important to increase awareness among men to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.