The Era of Coronavirus: Knowledge, Attitude, Practices, and Barriers to Hand Hygiene Among Makerere University Students and Katanga Community Residents

BACKGROUND: The Novel Coronavirus was declared as a pandemic by the WHO at the end of 2019. Proper hand hygiene was identified as one of the simplest most cost-effective Covid-19 control and prevention measures. It is therefore very important to identify gaps in the knowledge, attitude, and practices, and barriers regarding hand hygiene in the community. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using a simple random sampling technique. An interviewer-guided questionnaire with questions on knowledge, attitude, practice, and barriers to hand hygiene was used in data collection. Collected data were analyzed using Microsoft office excel 2016 and STATA 15 software. A 95% confidence interval was used and statistical significance was P<0.05. RESULTS: Only 88 (24.5%) of the participants had adequate knowledge of hand hygiene. 32.8% of the university students had adequate knowledge compared to 6.3% of the Katanga residents. The majority of 336 (93.6%) participants had a good attitude towards hand hygiene. University students had a significantly better knowledge of hand hygiene while Katanga slum residents had a slightly better attitude towards hand hygiene. Only 19.6% accomplished all the seven steps of handwashing. 38.4% of the participants were still greeting by handshaking. Of the participants, 60.1% noted lack of soap as a barrier to hand hygiene and 62.9% reported having more than three barriers to hand hygiene. Participants who had been taught handwashing were more likely to have better hand hygiene knowledge and practice. CONCLUSION: There was an overall high proportion of participants with a low level of hand hygiene knowledge. There is a need for optimizing hand-hygiene practices through addressing the barriers and promoting public health education.