Knowledge and Behavior of People regarding Self-care Prevention from Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19)

Abstract

This study aimed to study knowledge and behavior of people regarding self-care prevention from COVID-19 and identify relationship between knowledge and behavior of people regarding self-care prevention from COVID-19. Participants were 150 people who were simply recruited from people living in Bansang Subdistrict, Maung Phayao Province, aged between 20 and 60 years. Data collection was done in April 2020 by using a research questionnaire. The content validity was validated by 3 experts, and its IOC was 0.67 – 1.00. The reliabilities with Cronbach Co-efficiency were 0.89 and 0.91 respectively. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. Results found that the most of participants know how to  prevent  COVID-19. Then, each item had taken into consideration and found that   20% of them answered incorrectly that coronavirus 2019 is the same virus strain as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV  and  13.33 % of them answered incorrectly that an incubation period of coronavirus was about 3-14 days  and coronavirus 2019 could spread from human to human even they were asymptomatic infection. Prevention behavior scores were at high level ( = 0.88, SD = 0.11 and = 1.61, SD = 0.128 , respectively). The lowest score was knowledge on COVID-19 incubation period in 3-14 days ( = 0.75, SD = 0.43). Behavior on alcohol hand rub with 70% alcohol concentration ( = 1.03, SD = 0.67) and hands washing after touching bills or coins ( = 1.23, SD = 0.68) were reported as low score. Correlation analysis revealed that there was a positive correlation between knowledge and prevention behavior at moderate level (r = .327, p-value = .000).  People had high score on knowledge and behavior regarding self-care prevention from COVID-19. However, there were low scores on some items which might impact COVID-19 spreading. Public awareness in prevention and control are necessary.