ABSTRACT
Introduction: For curbing Covid-19 disease, adequate knowledge, attitude, and practices of both rural and urban population for Covid-19 disease prevention is required along with busting of the associated myths. Objectives: To assess the Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of urban and rural residents of Lucknow district regarding covid-19 preventive behaviour and associated myths. Methodology: A community-based study was conducted among 420 rural and 421 urban residents of Lucknow. Multistage random sampling was done to select the study subjects. A pre-designed pretested semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect the information regarding the Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of the residents for covid-19 disease causes, prevention, and treatment. Further, KAP scoring was done to compare the two groups. Results: The mean age of the rural and urban residents was 31.48 ± 12.05 and 30.93 ± 11.96 years respectively. Only 40.4 % urban and 25.5 % rural people had correct knowledge about social distancing (p<0.0001). Knowledge regarding quarantine for covid-19 disease prevention was less among the urban residents (64.6%) as compared to rural (70.5%) (p=0.035). More than one-third (37.6%) of the rural resident believed in the myth that alcohol can prevent the covid-19 disease (p=0.003). 68.8 and 70.5 percent rural and urban residents had positive attitude towards the Indian government’ efforts in curbing the disease. Majority of the urban (90%) and rural (87.6%) residents wore mask when they went out. Only one-fourth of the urban (24.7%) and rural (22.9%) had correct practices for the duration of hand washing. Conclusion: The knowledge was more among the urban people, attitude and practices were almost similar among both the rural and urban residents while myths were more observed among the rural residents. © 2022, Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Background: Immediately after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, with an unprecedented cooperation between biomedical, pharmaceutical, technological, and political sectors, new vaccines were developed and approved in record times. However, doubts were raised on their efficacy and adverse effects. Globally, it was agreed that the first recipients for vaccines would be the health care workers (HCWs). Logically, it was bound to raise some concerns and result in hesitancy among the HCWs. Aims: The current study was planned to study the proportion of HCWs having hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccination and factors effecting it. Settings and Design: Cross-sectional study conducted among HCWs of Uttar Pradesh. Methods and Material: The survey was conducted both in online and offline mode and attempted by 254 HCWs eligible for receiving COVID-19 vaccine. Statistical analysis used: t-test, chi-square test, proportion, mean, SD Results: Vaccine hesitancy was present in 35.8% HCWs. Only social factors like caste (p=0.023) and religion (p<0.001) were found to be significantly associated with vaccine hesitancy. Gender, type of health worker, fear of COVID-19 infection, fear of lethality or pre-existing diseases did not affect vaccine hesitancy. The maximum number of HCWs (71.4%) were hesitant because they were unsure of the side-effects followed by the reason of being unsure about its effect on their own health (53.8%). When asked about their attitude towards compulsory COVID-19 vaccination for HCWs, should it be made mandatory by the government, 42.9% were in favour and 40.6% were against any such mandate. Conclusions: The study concluded that social factors like religion and caste are more deterministic for vaccine hesitancy.