Social distancing practice and associated factors in response to COVID-19 pandemic at West Guji Zone, Southern Ethiopia, 2021: A community based cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Curtailing physical contact between individuals reduces transmission and spread of the disease. Social distancing is an accepted and effective strategy to delay the disease spread and reduce the magnitude of outbreaks of pandemic COVID-19. However, no study quantified social distancing practice and associated factors in the current study area. Therefore, the study aimed to assess social distancing practice and associated factors in response to COVID-19 pandemic in West Guji Zone, Southern Ethiopia, 2020. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A Community based cross-sectional study design was conducted among randomly selected 410 household members of Bule Hora Town, West Guji Zone. Data were collected by pre-tested interviewer administered structured questionnaire adapted from previous peer reviewed articles. The data were coded and entered in to Epi data version 3.5 and analyzed by SPSS version 23. The bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions analysis was done to identify factors associated with social distancing practice. Adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval and p value <0.05 were used to declare statistical significance. RESULT: Out of 447 planned samples, 410 participants were successfully interviewed and included into final analysis; making the response rate of 91.7%. The median (±IQR) age of study participants was 28(±9) years. In this study, 38.3% [95% CI: 33.5%, 43.1%)] of the study participants have good social distancing practices for the prevention of COVID-19. Age group 26–30 years [AOR = 2.56(95% CI: 1.18–5.54)] and 31–35 years [AOR = 3.57(95%CI: 1.56–8.18)], employed [AOR = 6.10(95%CI: 3.46–10.74)],poor knowledge [AOR = 0.59 (95% CI:0.36–0.95)], negative attitude [AOR = 0.55 (95% CI:0.31–0.95)] and low perceived susceptibility [AOR = 0.33(95%CI: 0.20–0.54)] were significantly associated with good social distancing practice. CONCLUSION: Social distancing practice is relatively poor in the study area. The knowledge and attitude level of participants were identified to be the major factors for the observed poor social distancing practice. Sustained efforts to improve awareness and attitudes towards COVID-19 prevention might improve adherence to social distancing practices.