Attitudes and behaviors on prevention and control of COVID-19 in a less developed village of Southwest China: a cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: At present new epidemic has entered a stage of normalized management, but there is still sporadic distribution, public already had certain protective knowledge of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). G County of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is located in the mountainous area of southwest Sichuan Province, which also is ethnic minorities and as national-level poverty-stricken areas, residents in the region to the migrant workers as the main economic source of personnel with high mobility. In order to ensure the resumption of work and production, the effective implementation of epidemic prevention measures has certain guiding significance for epidemic prevention and control and economic recovery. This study investigated and analyzed the status quo of villagers’ attitudes and behaviors toward COVID-19 prevention and control in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, providing evidence for COVID-19 prevention and control measures in the resumption of rural work and agricultural production. METHODS: Snowball sampling was used to survey 117 villagers from an impoverished village in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture on February 10–19, 2020. A total of 120 questionnaires were collected, the recovery rate is 97.5%. Based on literature review, a self-designed questionnaire on attitudes and behaviors related to COVID-19 prevention and control was designed, the expert validity score was 0.912, and Cronbach α coefficient was 0.903. RESULTS: The overall score for respondents’ attitude toward COVID-19 prevention and control was 29.65±3.23, which was considered a good level. The total score for prevention and control behavior was 114.74±17.09, which was medium level. A statistically significant difference was found for the attitudes and behaviors of different ethnic groups toward epidemic prevention and control. CONCLUSIONS: The people in this village had a positive attitude toward epidemic prevention and control, but there was still room for improvement in prevention and control behavior. Training on hand hygiene and wearing masks outside should be strengthened, and relevant training for ethnic minorities should be further strengthened.