KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT AND PREVENTIVE PRACTICES INTERRELATED TO COVID-19. A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY BETWEEN MEDICAL AND NON-MEDICAL PERSONNEL IN PUNJAB

Abstract

COVID-19 occurrence takes place in December, 2019 in Wuhan Hubei Province, China and spread to various other countries in a couple of weeks. This study was carried out to evaluate and assess the knowledge, attitude, psychological impact and overall preventive rehearses related to COVID-19.

Alongside it was a prospective cross-sectional survey of Punjabi medical and non-medical workers. It took place in roughly three months, from June 2020 to August 2020. There were 800 volunteers in all; 436 of them were medical professionals and 364 were not. A total of 5 sections of the questionnaire comprised of questions correlated to demographics, knowledge of signs and indications, treatment, participants’ preventive practices and psychological impact of COVID-19. Out of these 800, individuals aged between 18 to 30 years gave maximum responses i.e. 90.6% amongst whom the majority had been females (64%). About 98.3% of the individuals knew that COVID-19 was a viral disease, 91.3% were aware of it and 91.6% knew the appearance of symptoms of COVID-19 disease, but only 74.9% knew that it was a contagious disease. Some people stated that there were certain cures for the infection, either by self-medication at home i.e. use of antibiotics (14.6%) or sometimes by the use of herbal products or traditional medicines (42.3%). Most of the participants knew how to prevent the spread of infection and about 79.1% of the individuals knew that there is right now no vaccination available to treat COVID-12.