Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude, Practice and Hospital Experience Regarding COVID-19 among Pregnant and Postpartum Mothers at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Kashmir: A Cross-sectional Study

ABSTRACT

Background: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The virus can spread from an infected person when they cough, sneeze, speak, or breathe through mouth or nose. Majority of the people who get infected with the virus will experience mild to moderate illness. However, some will become severely ill and require medical attention. Pregnancy is associated with increased risk for severe COVID-19. Few studies have examined knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) during the pandemic especially the high-risk groups like pregnancy and post-partum period. Aim(s) To analyze the knowledge, attitude, practice and hospital experience regarding COVID-19 among pregnant and post-partum mothers at a tertiary care hospital in Kashmir. Method(s) A cross-sectional study was conducted among 403 research participants from a tertiary care hospital of Kashmir in year 2020-2021 using a semi-structured questionnaire. The confidentiality and anonymity of respondents was maintained. The data was entered in Microsoft Excel and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25. The findings were presented as percentages (95% confidence intervals;CI), median, means and Standard deviation. Result(s) A total of 403 post-partum women participated in the study. Almost all the participants had heard about COVID-19 (96.6%). A majority of them were aware about how COVID-19 gets transmitted and its preventive measures. Most of the participants (62%) knew that COVID-19 has effects on pregnancy. Almost all of participants (97%) wore mask during hospital stay. All of the women washed their hands with soap water or alcohol based sanitizer. A fewer of the mothers (20%) wore mask while breastfeeding their baby. The results of binary logistic regression analysis found associations between knowledge and marital status (OR = 4.983, 95% CI 1.894-13.107). Correlation analysis found a weak positive correlation between knowledge and practice scores (r = 0.210, p-value = 0.01). Conclusion(s) As the COVID-19 cases are still increasing globally, participants overall had high KAP scores. This study can guide public health strategies regarding pregnant women and COVID-19. We recommend that interventions to improve and attitude and practice scores.