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. 2021 Jun 30;18(13):7004.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph18137004.

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding COVID-19 among Healthcare Workers in Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Onesmus Kamacooko  1 , Jonathan Kitonsa  1 , Ubaldo M Bahemuka  1 , Freddie M Kibengo  1 , Anne Wajja  1 , Vincent Basajja  1 , Alfred Lumala  2 , Ayoub Kakande  1 , Paddy Kafeero  1 , Edward Ssemwanga  3 , Robert Asaba  4 , Joseph Mugisha  1 , Benjamin F Pierce  5 , Robin J Shattock  5 , Pontiano Kaleebu  1 , Eugene Ruzagira  1
Affiliations

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding COVID-19 among Healthcare Workers in Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Onesmus Kamacooko et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at high risk of COVID-19. However, data on HCWs' knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) toward COVID-19 are limited. Between September and November 2020, we conducted a questionnaire-based COVID-19 KAP survey among HCWs at three hospitals in Uganda. We used Bloom's cut-off of ≥80% to determine sufficient knowledge, good attitude, and good practice, and multivariate Poisson regression with robust variance for statistical analysis. Of 717 HCWs invited to participate, 657 (91.6%) agreed and were enrolled. The mean age (standard deviation) of enrollees was 33.2 (10.2) years; most were clinical HCWs (64.7%) and had advanced secondary school/other higher-level education (57.8%). Overall, 83.9% had sufficient knowledge, 78.4% had a positive attitude, and 37.0% had good practices toward COVID-19. Factors associated with KAP were: Knowledge: being a clinical HCW (aRR: 1.12; 95% CI: 1.02-1.23) and previous participation in health research (aRR: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.04-1.17); Attitude: age > 35 years (aRR: 0.88; 95% CI: 0.79-0.98); Practice: being a clinical HCW (aRR: 1.91; 95% CI: 1.41-2.59). HCWs in Uganda have good knowledge and positive attitude but poor practices towards COVID-19. Differences in COVID-19 KAP between clinical and non-clinical HCWs could affect uptake of COVID-19 interventions including vaccination.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-COV-2; Uganda; attitude; healthcare workers; knowledge; practices.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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