Awareness and experience of health-care workers during coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic

Abstract

BACKGROUND: During the 2nd week of July 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19) infection spreading in the community. Now more than 15 lakhs peoples have been infected in India, out of the 26816 patients were deceased. COVID 19 outbreaks become an additional hazard to the health-care workers (HCWs), leading to fatigue, anxiety, depression and fear of death. The objective of this questionnaire-based study is to know about the knowledge of HCWs about COVID 19, their experiences while dealing with the disease, and the protective measures taken to prevent the infection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted for 1 month starting from the 2nd week of June 2020 after getting institutional ethical clearance. This study included 240 HCWs posted in the medical and surgical Departments of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. This questionnaire was prepared in online Google forms and required 2 min to complete. Mean, median, range, and standard deviation were used to describe the continuous variables, and percentages were used to describe the categorical data. RESULTS: Among 240 HCWs, 79.16% (n = 190) participants have good knowledge and adapted good precautions (score 15–23) for COVID 19 infection. Rest 20% (n = 48) and 0.8% (n = 2) participants has average (score 8–14) or poor knowledge (score <8) with adaptation of average or poor precautionary measures against COVID 19, respectively. CONCLUSION: This study concluded that we have the requirement of more educational training programs for awareness of HCWs and precautionary measures against COVID 19. Thereby, HCWs can improve their knowledge and participate in this fight against COVID 19 with more efficiency and confidence.

Keywords

• awareness
• coronavirus disease 2019
• health care worker
• knowledge
• precautions