View of Pakistani Residents toward Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) during a Rapid Outbreak: A Rapid Online Survey

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a deadly disease that is affecting most of the countries worldwide. Public understanding, including knowledge about signs and symptoms, mode of transmission, and hygiene of COVID-19, is vital for designing effective control strategies during a public health crisis. The current study is aimed at investigating the public's perspective about COVID-19, including their knowledge, attitude, and practices.

METHODS: A rapid online survey comprising 22 items was administered during the rapid outbreak of COVID-19 in Pakistan. Questions were focused on the prevention, transmission, clinical features, and control of COVID-19. In addition, the attitudes and practices of the participants were explored. Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney tests, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and regression analysis were carried out during data analysis.

RESULTS: A total of 1257 respondents participated in this study. Most of the respondents had good knowledge (good = 64.8%, average = 30.5%, poor = 4.7%) of COVID-19. Gender, marital status, education, and residence were observed to have a significant association with the knowledge score. A vast majority of the survey respondents (77.0%) believed that COVID-19 would be controlled successfully in Pakistan. The practices of wearing a mask (85.8%) and handwashing (88.1%) were common among the participants.

CONCLUSION: The participants demonstrated good knowledge and reasonable attitudes and practices toward most aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak. Improvements in certain areas could be made by mass-level education.