Assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice toward COVID-19 and associated factors among health care workers in Silte Zone, Southern Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 is a pandemic respiratory disease caused by the highly contagious novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV 2). The disease is now quickly spreading around the world, resulting in ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Healthcare workers are more susceptible to COVID-19 infection than the general population due to frequent contact with infected individuals. OBJECTIVE: This study was aimed to assess knowledge, attitude and practice towards COVID-19 and associated factors among health care workers. METHODS: Facility-based cross-sectional study design was conducted among health care workers in Silte Zone. A total of 379 health professionals were selected using multistage stratified sampling technique. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Binary logistic regression model was used to see association between outcome and independent variables. RESULTS: This study found 74.9%, 84.2% and 68.9% prevalence of adequate knowledge, positive attitude and good practice respectively. Working in comprehensive specialized hospital (AOR = 4.46, 95% CI = 1.46–13.62).having MSC degree (AOR = 10.26, 95% CI = 2.27–46.44), and training on COVID-19 (AOR = 6.59, 95% CI = 2.97–14.65) were strongly associated with knowledge of health care workers. On the other hand, older age (AOR = 3.35, 95% CI = 1.07–10.50), training on COVID-19 (AOR = 3.73, 95% CI = 1.82–7.63), Work experience (AOR = 3.78, 95% CI = 1.46–9.80) and Knowledge (AOR = 5.45, 95% CI = 2.60–11.43) were significantly associated with attitude, whereas source of information from friends or colleagues (AOR = 3.13, 95% CI = 1.28–7.66), working in primary hospital (AOR = 0.36, 95% CI = 0.21–0.620) and having good knowledge (AOR = 1.80, 95% CI = 1.03–3.14) were strongly associated with good practice of health care workers. CONCLUSION: This study found majority of health care workers had good level of knowledge and positive attitude toward COVID-19, but lower proportion of health care workers practices sufficiently in the study area. Type of health facilities, level of education, training on COVID-19, work experience, type of source of information were significantly associated with knowledge, attitude and practice of health care workers. Stakeholders need to focus on interventions that increase preventive practices of health care workers.