Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Southeast Asian Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health, cilt.52, sa.6, ss.742-761, 2021 (SCI-Expanded)
© 2021, SEAMEO TROPMED Network. All rights reserved.Health care workers are at risk for acquiring Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). In this study we aimed to determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of healthcare workers in Turkey regarding COVID-19 in order to inform efforts to prevent COVID-19 infection in the study population. Study subjects were healthcare workers working at several different health care facilities in Ankara, Turkey. Each study subject was asked to complete a semi-structured sent to them by email or social media asking about their KAP regarding COVID-19. A total of 340 subjects were included in the study; 76.2% female. The mean (+standard deviation) age of study subjects was 28 (+8; range: 18-55) years. Thirty-six point five (36.5) percent of subjects worked with COVID-19 patients. Ninety-one point four (91.4) percent of subjects knew SARS-CoV-2 is spread through respiratory droplets. Ninety-one point two (91.2) percent of subjects obtained their information about COVID-19 from the Turkey Ministry of Health and 63.2% from the World Health Organization. All the participants (100%) stated they wore face masks, 98.2% stated they had regular good hand hygiene, 96.8% stated they had good respiratory hygiene (covering their mouth and nose with a piece of tissue paper when coughing or sneezing and disposing of the tissue appropriately) and 90.9% stated they had good surface and environment cleaning/disinfection practices. There were no significant differences in subject responses by gender except to the question, “Who is at greatest risk of contracting COVID-19?” in which the most common answer among female subjects was health care workers (52.1% of female subjects) and the most common answer among male subjects was the elderly (59.3% of male subjects) (p<0.05). The perceived risk of contracting COVID-19 (72.4%) was significantly greater (p<0.05) among physicians than other healthcare workers. In summary, our study subject overall COVID-19 knowledge level was good, the overall attitude level was only fair and the overall practices level was good. We conclude there is a need for an education program for study subjects to improve their KAPs regarding COVID-19. Further studies are needed after implementation of this program to determine its effect in the study population.