Background: COVID-19 outbreak has been declared as pandemic by WHO on March 11, 2020. Globally more than 16 lakh cases have been reported, affecting nearly 195 nations till April 12th 2020. Health authorities have initiated measures to create awareness and to control the spread.
Objectives: To assess the Knowledge and practices of general public towards COVID-19.
Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out among general public residing in Karnataka. Online questioner was prepared and circulated in social media and responses were collected during March 2020. Data was analysed using SPSS 23.0, descriptive statistics were calculated. Knowledge scores and practices with socio-demographic profile were done using Independent t test, one-way ANOVA and Chi-square test.
Results: A total of 1048 responses were received. Majority were males (61.3%), married (57.4%), of age 2040 years (79.4%) and held a bachelor degree (53.1%). The mean knowledge score for COVID 19 was 11.7 ± 2.07. There was a statistically significant difference of knowledge score among various socio-demographic variable like age (P = 0.009), gender (P = 0.001), educational status (P = 0.00) and marital status (P = 0.00). Majority of the study participants preferred consulting a doctor 964 (91.84%) when they have symptoms like fever and cough. 68 (6.4%) of the study participants had been to crowded places in recent times. 974 (92.9%) and 843 (80.5%) update their knowledge and prefer wearing mask outside the home respectively.
Conclusion: More than three-fourth of the participants had adequate knowledge and around 90% of the participants had satisfactory practices towards COVID-19.
Key words: Awareness; Coronavirus; Outbreak; Pandemic; Perception
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