Knowledge and Attitude of New Coronavirus Epidemic (COVID-19) Among Health Care Workers

Abstract

Objective:The recent spread of new coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic causing worldwide concern is a public health emergency situation. The risk of getting infected due to close contact with the infected patients as well as the concern levels of the health professionals on this issue are very high. The aim of this study is to evaluate the concern level of being infected of the health professionals, as well as their view and perception of different applications used during the treatment of the COVID-19 cases together with their whole approach during this pandemic situation.Methods:The study was conducted through an online survey that was sent to all the health professionals of a pandemic hospital in a city in Turkey between 8-15 May 2020. This online survey was sent to all the professionals through social media platforms. The survey included both multiple-choice and true-false questions regarding COVID-19 diagnosis, clinical staging, treatment approach, concerns, knowledge, and awareness of the situation together with some social demographic characteristics of the health professionals. SPSS v20 program was used to evaluate the statistical analysis of the data collected. Data are shown through mean ± standard deviation and percentage.Results:The study population consisted of 250 (59.9%) doctors and 169 (41.1%) assistant healthcare professionals and the average age of the participants was 33.21±6.88 years. Of 128 participants who smoked during the pandemic 76 (18.1%) wanted to quit smoking. Three hundred and ninety (93.1%) participants thought that they were in a group with high risk of being infected and that they concerned about this matter. Of the participants 109 (26.01%) had COVID-19 positive relatives or friends. Sixty four (15.3%) participants claimed to have a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, and 3 (0.7%) of them reported that their COVID-19 PCR tests were positive. Eighty-four (20.04%) stated that they used hydroxychloroquine for prophylaxis.Conclusion:The healthcare professionals working in the pandemic hospital during the pandemic stated that they generally had sufficient knowledge about COVID-19 and believed that our country would be successful with its fight against this pandemic. Moreover, our study proved the importance of knowledge levels in fighting communicable diseases.

Keywords

• covid-19 health care professionals
• knowledge levels of covid-19
• hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis