Citywide preparedness for a pandemic: A cross-sectional survey of knowledge, attitudes, and practices about respiratory infection prevention in Bogotá, Colombia

INTRODUCTION: Healthcare personnel plays an important role in the prevention of acute respiratory infections in hospital settings. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to establish the level of knowledge about respiratory virus infections and the attitudes and practices among healthcare workers, leaders of infection control committees in hospitals of Bogotá, Colombia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We used a self-administered questionnaire of 28 items during the monthly meeting sponsored by the local health authority. "Yes or no" and "true or false" questions were applied to measure knowledge. Attitudes and practices were measured with a Likert-type scale according to the agreement degree. RESULTS: We surveyed 70 healthcare workers. Respondents demonstrated a good level of knowledge as 80% of them answered correctly more than five questions. A total of 54.4% showed a low degree of agreement when asked if their institutions have the policy to stay home when they are sick with respiratory symptoms and 67.1% never or rarely remain at home under such conditions. CONCLUSION: Healthcare worker leaders of infection control committees in Bogotá's hospitals have adequate knowledge about the prevention of seasonal respiratory viruses. There is a need for implementing urgent sick leave policies as a measure to prevent the spread of potential coronavirus infections in hospitals.