Health Communication, Knowledge, Perception and Behavioral Responses to COVID-19 Outbreak in Dessie, Kombolcha and Kemissie Towns, Amhara Region, Northeast Ethiopia: A Mixed-Method Study

BACKGROUND: Despite the efforts made to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in Ethiopia, new cases continue to rise. Therefore, to overcome the devastating effects of the outbreak, health communication and the community’s knowledge, perception, and behavioral responses towards COVID-19 should be assessed. METHODS: A community-based cross-sectional study design was conducted from June 15 to July 30, 2020, with 827 and 18 participants for the quantitative and qualitative study, respectively. The data were collected using ODK collect and exported to SPSS version 25 for analysis. Multivariate logistic regression was computed, and variables that had a significant association were interpreted at p <0.05 with a 95% CI. Additionally, the qualitative data were collected using in-depth interview and then transcribed, translated, and analyzed using thematic content analysis. RESULTS: The majority (97.8%) of respondents obtained information about COVID-19 through broadcast media, and 58.5% of the participants had good knowledge of COVID-19. Likewise, 51.3%, 60.9%, 73.8%, 35.1%, and 74.2% of participants had high perceived susceptibility, severity, benefit, barrier, and self-efficacy to COVID-19, respectively. Additionally, 54.3% of respondents had good behavioral responses to COVID-19. Kombolcha town residents (AOR: 4.32, 95% CI, 2.02–9.2), aged from 25 to 34, and 35 to 44 years old (AOR: 2.62, 95% CI, 1.37–5.0), and (AOR: 2.23, 95% CI, 1.11–4.46), respectively, secondary or above education (AOR: 2.38, 95% CI, 1.17–4.86), good knowledge of COVID-19 (AOR: 2.07, 95% CI, 1.42–3.02), high perceived self-efficacy (AOR: 4.90, 95% CI, 3.10–7.75), and low perceived barriers (AOR: 3.17, 95% CI, 2.12–4.74) to COVID-19 preventive measures were significantly associated with the behavioral responses to COVID-19. CONCLUSION: In this study, the behavioral responses to COVID-19 were relatively low. Therefore, continuous awareness creation is needed to scale up the community’s knowledge and perceived self-efficacy. Furthermore, the general public, especially young people, should follow the government’s COVID-19 prevention and control rules and regulations.