Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Prevention and Control of Covid-19 Outbreak: A Community Based Cross-Sectional Study in Benue State, North Central, Nigeria

ABSTRACT The novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) remains a disease of public health emergency despite the measures put in place to mitigating the effects. We conducted a community-based cross-sectional study on the knowledge, attitude and practices of prevention and control of the disease among 560 adults who lived in Benue State, Nigeria, between December 2019 when the first case of the disease was announced in Wuhan China and March, 2021, via structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. Multistage sampling technique was used to select the eligible respondents. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0 and presented in exploratory formats as frequency tables and charts. The age of the respondents ranged from 16-76 years with mean age of 36.4 (± 13.1) years. Overall, 552(99.6%) were aware of COVID-19 and the predominant source of information was media 428(77.2%), 206(37.3%) attested to know persons infected with COVID-19 and 30(5.4%) had history of contacts with an infected person. Regular practice of handwashing, use of face mask and hand sanitizer was 20.2%, 40.1% and 42.5.4% respectively. Overall, 40.4% had good knowledge, 44.5% had good attitude and 56.4% had good practice scores. In order to mitigate the effect of COVID-19 in Benue, the State COVID-19 action committee need to intensify their campaign on health promotion and adherence to good practices of prevention and control of infection