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. 2020 May 29;9(6):1643.
doi: 10.3390/jcm9061643.

Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices, and Burden During the COVID-19 Pandemic in People with Parkinson's Disease in Germany

Hannah M Zipprich  1   2 , Ulrike Teschner  1 , Otto W Witte  1   2 , Aline Schönenberg  1 , Tino Prell  1   2
Affiliations

Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices, and Burden During the COVID-19 Pandemic in People with Parkinson's Disease in Germany

Hannah M Zipprich et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Background: Adherence to measures that have been adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial to control the spread of the coronavirus. Methods: Semi-structured telephone interviews were performed with 99 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 21 controls to explore knowledge, attitudes, practices, and burden in order to elucidate nonadherence to preventive measures. Results: The majority of patients understood the preventive measures and felt sufficiently informed. Analysis of qualitative answers, however, showed that about 30% of patients had an insufficient level of knowledge, which was not associated with educational level, cognitive disorders, or depression. Changes in behaviour were reported by 73 patients (99% performed at least one specific preventive behavior, and 86.9% have reduced social contacts and stayed home). A closer analysis of qualitative answers showed that 27.3% of patients continued to meet relatives face-to-face almost daily. Anxiety and worries about the current situation were reported by 58.6% of patients; 31.3% complained about a decrease in their mobility since the beginning of the restrictions, mainly because of worsening of PD and because regular therapies (e.g., physiotherapy) were canceled. Conclusions: About 30% of PD patients are nonadherent to preventive measures. Use of simple dichotomous questions overestimates adherence to preventive measures in patients with PD.

Keywords: COVID-19; attitudes; knowledge; pandemic; practices.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Actively reported sources of information (%). Active reporting means that patients were not given a choice of answers but were free to choose their own.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Actively reported preventive measures in response to COVID-19 (%).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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