ABSTRACT
Background: COVID-19 is the latest global pandemic. To date, no antiviral treatment or vaccine has been explicitly recommended for it. Therefore, applying preventive measures to control its spread is the most critical intervention. Perceived risk and attitude determines population’s reaction.Objectives: study perceptions, attitude and practices towards COVID-19 among EgyptiansMethods: The study was cross-sectional using a snowball nonrandom sample from public population of Egyptian Community. They were asked to fulfill predesigned online questionnaire that was available from 16th to 24th March 2020.Results: The study included 1663 participants from all governorates of Egypt. More than half were at age group 21-30 years, 64.3% females and 85.1% students. Main source of information was social media (46.4%). Most of Participants had positive attitude and moderate degree of fear. Only 25.4% of students satisfied with distance learning, 41.4% of participants believe that they are susceptible to infection and 61% believe in seriousness of the disease. About half of participants reported that they follow preventive precautions. Majority of participants (81.3%) believe in effectiveness of these precautions. Participant’s practices were relatively satisfactory except for wearing protective masks, movement of families outside home, reducing touch of nose and eyes, and getting enough sleeping hours. Binary logistic regression identified that significant predictors of good practice were female sex, belief in susceptibility, seriousness, and effectiveness of precautions.On conclusion: Obligatory wearing of masks was an important governmental necessary step and to improve population reaction to control COVID-19, we need to promote realistic risk perceptions and effective attitudes.