Knowledge, attitudes, and practices of healthcare workers towards COVID-19 patients in the United Arab Emirates: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: The Coronavirus disease (a highly infectious viral disease) quickly swept across the globe in 2020, causing mortality and severe respiratory illnesses. It quickly affected businesses and publicly provided services in United Arab Emirates (UAE), imposing significant costs to society. The general population of UAE was jittery and unsure how to address the problem. The focus turned on government and Health Care Workers (HCW) to handle the pandemic. Thus, knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of HCW became critical for the treatment and isolation of COVID-19 patients. Thus, the KAP of the HCW came under scrutiny. This is study set out to answer the research question, by investigating the KAP of HCW related to COVID-19 in the UAE. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study undertaken in UAE. The focus of was on HCWs as a population. Using convenience sampling with the help of Creative Research Software, the participants were identified, and an online questionnaire (Google Forms) distributed by the author. The questionnaire was adapted from the instrument developed by Bruce and Frey. It contained questions on demographic variables, knowledge, attitudes, and practice of HCW related to COVID-19. That instrument was contextualized to the UAE society and validated. RESULTS: Among the participants in the study, the majority, 90.7% (97) knew that the absence of fever did not mean there was no chance of transmission from an infected person. Further, 84.1% (90) agreed that wearing general medical face masks helps prevent one from contracting COVID-19. However, only 36.4% (39) strongly believed that wearing a well-fitting face mask was effective. In addition, only 15.9% (17) reported confidently managing patients with symptoms of COVID-19, while 54.2% (58) indicated they were afraid of contracting the virus from patients. Almost 50% of the participants noted that they avoided patients who had symptoms of the COVID-19. CONCLUSION: This study revealed that the KAP for healthcare workers from UAE healthcare facilities related to COVID-19 was high. The healthcare workers were trained well and that positively affected awareness and the practice of HCW regarding the spread of the virus.