Practices and Perception of COVID-19 Among Pakistani Population

Abstract

Introduction: COVID-19 was declared as ''Pandemic'' by World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11th, 20120. Since this time, various awareness campaigns by health authorities and healthcare professionals have been conducted for knowledge and ultimately prevention of transmission of the disease. Proper attitude and knowledge toward the disease is the key point for prevention of COVID-19 as there is currently no treatment of vaccine available. Objective: Main objective of the study is to assess attitude, knowledge and perspective of COVID-19 in Pakistani Population. Methodology: An online – based and paper – based questionnaire was filled from both healthcare – related and non – healthcare – related individuals. Frequencies were analyzed using SPSS 21.0 Results: A total of 3256 individuals participated in the study, including both healthcare – related (2244/68.91%) and non – healthcare – related (1012/31.08%). Majority of the population had good knowledge in maximum questions. 89.60% believed COVID-19 as a contagious disease. 94.25% agreed that the cause of disease is primarily a virus, though small percentage didn't agree on this point. Regarding treatment, 68.08% individuals agreed that there is currently no treatment of COVID-19, followed by some believed antibiotics (4.39%), antiviral (14.52%) and passive immunization (2.64%) as treatment of the disease. Majority of population had good knowledge regarding clinical features of COVID-19. Conclusion: The knowledge, attitude and perspective of population were good as most of the people were agreed on standard facts. The reason behind this knowledge is awareness campaigns by health authorities and healthcare personnel, especially through media. Still there is lack of knowledge in some points due to misconceptions and false beliefs of population towards COVID-19. More campaigns with scientific data is required for prevention of the disease.