Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Regarding Coronavirus Disease-19: Population-Based Study in Iraq

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: In March 2020, the world health organization declared Coronavirus Disease (COVID)-19 a pandemic global communicable disease, there is neither a vaccine nor a treatment for this virus. The aim of the current study was to assess knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of Iraqi population toward COVID-19. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 272 respondents from different states of Iraq using online administered questionnaires. The questions were adopted from the previous study and consist of three parts mainly socio-demographic, KAP. RESULTS: The majority of the respondents had good knowledge regarding COVID-19 (95.2%). A total of 97.8% of the respondents knew that COVID-19 caused by a virus. Regarding incubation period, 75% of them answer correctly that it is 2–15 days. Higher percept (39%) and 37.9% of participant people considered the disease as a very dangerous and seriously dangerous disease, respectively. The majority (85.3%) of the sample thought that no vaccination available for the disease. More than two-thirds of the sample (76.5%) were wearing face mask sometimes while only 19.5% wearing it all the time. The majority (265) out of 272 was ready to stay home if it required to prevent the spread of the disease. There was a significant association between gender, living state, and COVID-19 knowledge (p = 0.009, <0.0001), respectively. CONCLUSION: The overall knowledge, practice of respondents was good regarding COVID-19. People need to stay at home to prevent the infection and reduce the number of cases.