THE ERA OF CORONAVIRUS; KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, PRACTICES, AND BARRIERS TO HAND HYGIENE AMONG MAKERERE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND KATANGA COMMUNITY RESIDENTS
Abstract
Background
China reported the Novel Coronavirus at the end of the year 2019 which was, later on, declared a Pandemic by the WHO. Proper hand hygiene was identified as one of the simplest most cost-effective Covid-19 control and prevention measures. It is therefore very important to understand the compliance of the community to hand hygiene.
Method
A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among the undergraduate students of Makerere University and residents of Katanga slum from 17th to 22nd of March, 2020. An interviewer guided questionnaire with questions on knowledge, attitude, practice, and barriers to hand hygiene was used in data collection. The collected data was analyzed using Microsoft office excel 2016 and STATA 15 software. A 95% confidence interval was used and statistical significance was P<0.05.
Results
Only 8.4% of the participants had good knowledge of hand hygiene. 11.7% of the university students had good knowledge compared to 0.9% of the Katanga residents. 29.0% of the participants had a good attitude while 50.1% had a moderate attitude to hand hygiene. University students were 6.3 times (OR: 6.3, 95%C1: (2.1 – 18.5), P=0.001) more likely to have good knowledge while Katanga residents were 3.6 times (OR: 3.6, 95%C1: (1.5 – 8.4), P=0.003) more likely to have good attitude to hand hygiene. Only 19.6% accomplished all the seven steps of handwashing. 38.4% of the participants still greeted by handshaking and 60.1% noted lack of soap as a barrier to hand hygiene and 62.9% reported having more than three barriers to hand hygiene. Participants that had been taught handwashing were more likely to have better hand hygiene knowledge and practice.
Conclusion
Despite a fair attitude, deficiency of knowledge coupled with many barriers such as Lack of soap hindered the Practice of proper hand hygiene. Public health involvement to promote hand hygiene must be promoted.
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