Background
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new strain of coronavirus that was discovered in 2019 and has not been previously identified in humans. As of July 6th, 2020, the pandemic of COVID-19 has resulted in 11 327 790 confirmed cases and 532 340 deaths all over the world as reported by WHO.
Aim
The aim was to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of Egyptians toward COVID-19 infection.
Participants and methods
A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted during May 2020 over a period of 6 days for all adult attendees to outpatient clinics in Menoufia University Hospitals. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed and completed by all participants.
Results
Participant’s age in this study ranged from 18 to 76 years old, and 80.68% of them were above forty years old. Overall, 53.2% of the participants were females. Most of them had middle socio economic standard (SES) (68.72%), high education (53.23), and worked as professionals (45.64). Multivariate linear regression analysis showed a significant independent association between knowledge score and each of educational level and occupation (<0.001). In addition, a significant independent association was found between attitude score and each of age, residence, educational level, and SES (<0.001). There was a significant independent association between practice score and each of residence, educational level, SES, and occupation of the participants (<0.001).
Conclusion
As there was a significant positive correlation between knowledge and practice of the studied group toward COVID-19, more educational programs should be directed to people of low SES and rural areas.