Knowledge, attitude and practice regarding COVID-19 among Sudanese population during the early days of the pandemic: Online cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a new coronavirus strain. The first case of the disease was reported as pneumonia of unknown cause in late December 2019, in Wuhan, China, and then the disease started to spread to other countries. This study aimed to assess the knowledge attitude and practice of the Sudanese population toward COVID-19. METHODS: This cross-sectional online study was conducted among the Sudanese population. The Data was collected by using a self-administered online survey, the survey was in Arabic language and we tested it before sthe distribution. The data collection period was started from 31 March to 3 April 2020. We used an appropriate statistical test and a p-value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. RESULT: About 62% of the respondents were females, and 55.1% aged 12–24 years. Our study determined that 68.3% of the study participants had a good knowledge toward COVID-19, and the majority (96.4%) knew that the COVID-19 is transmitted through droplets, while 89.9% of the participants had a positive attitude toward the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, only 48.5% of the participants had a good practice toward COVID-19 pandemic. We also found that good knowledge is significantly associated with good practice. CONCLUSION: Our participants had good knowledge, and positive attitude toward the COVID-19. Our findings revealed that education is positively associated with knowledge, and good level of knowledge is associated with good practice toward COVID-19. Efforts should focus more to raise the awareness among the less educated people.