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. 2016 Dec 31;7(2):570.
doi: 10.4081/jphia.2016.570.

Healthcare Professionals' Awareness, Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Beliefs about Ebola at Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: A Cross-sectional Study

Tamrat Befekadu Abebe  1 , Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula  1 , Yonas Getaye Tefera  1 , Akram Ahmad  2 , Muhammad Umair Khan  2 , Sewunet Admasu Belachew  1 , Brandon Brown  3 , Tadesse Melaku Abegaz  1
Affiliations

Healthcare Professionals' Awareness, Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Beliefs about Ebola at Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: A Cross-sectional Study

Tamrat Befekadu Abebe et al. J Public Health Afr. .

Abstract

A poor understanding of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) among Health Care Professionals (HCPs) may put our lives at risk. We aimed to assess the awareness, knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs of HCPs towards Ebola at Gondar University Hospital (GUH) in Northwest Ethiopia. We conducted a hospital based, cross-sectional survey among 245 randomly selected HCPs working at GUH from August-October, 2015. A validated, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. We calculated descriptive statistics with P<0.05 being statistically significant. Of the 245 participants, 211 (86.1%) completed the study. The majority had heard about EVD and used news media (62%) as a source of information. Still, many were afraid of getting EVD (56.4%; P=0.001). A significant number of HCPs thought EVD can cause paralysis like polio (45%) and can be treated with antibiotics (28.4%). In addition, 46.4% of the HCPs felt anger or fear towards Ebola infected patients (P=0.006). We identified poor knowledge and negative incorrect beliefs among doctors and allied health professionals. There is a need for intensive training for all HCPs reduce EVD risk.

Keywords: Attitudes; Ebola Virus Disease; Ethiopia; Health Care Professionals; Knowledge.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: the authors declare no potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Source of Ebola virus disease information.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Ebola virus disease symptoms identified by the respondents.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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