Knowledge and Practice Toward Prevention of SARS-CoV-2 Among Healthcare Workers at Delghi Primary Hospital During a Massive Test Campaign in Northwest Gondar, Ethiopia: Institution-Based Descriptive Cross-Sectional Survey

Background: Since December 29, 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has been spreading and is associated with notoriously increased morbidity and mortality of populations worldwide, including Ethiopia Medicine and the healthcare system have been challenged by both first and second-waves of SARS-CoV-2 During this entire crisis, the main purpose of this study was to determine the current evidence on the level of awareness and prevention practice of healthcare workers (HCWs) at the district primary hospital, Delghi Primary Hospital (DPH) regarding COVID-19 in the overall effort to control the spread of the virus Methods: Institutional-based descriptive cross-sectional analysis was performed between late August and September 20, 2020 Participants of the study were HCWs with various occupations at DPH, North West Gondar, Ethiopia In this study, among 112 health professions, we included a total of 104 HCWs Written consent was obtained for willingness of the study participants from the DPH administrative office Then, using a pre-tested, structured, and self-administered questionnaire, data were collected The questionnaire included socio-demographics, sources of information, knowledge, and practice measures regarding COVID-19 The collected data were analyzed through IBM SPSS version 20 As a cut-off value, >=8 out of 15 knowledge questions and >=7 out of 14 practice questions were considered good knowledge and practice, respectively Results: The result of this study showed the majority of the respondents were male (71/104, (68 3%)), with a median age of 28 (minimum age 20 and maximum age 50) years Thus, 94 2% (n=98/104) was the overall rate of correctly answered questions out of 15 knowledge questions However, 40 6% of them had poor prevention practices 73 1% of participants used regular hand-washing with soap and 64 4% used hand sanitizer and handshake avoidance equally for prevention purposes Whereas, social distancing rule and mask-wearing were reported as impracticable by 55 8% and 44 2%, respectively Conclusion: 94 2% of HCWs had a good level of knowledge about COVID-19;in contrast, lack of preventive practice was observed This implies that there is a gap between knowledge and implementation of preventive measures toward the disease