Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice Toward Prevention of COVID-19 Among Jimma Town Residents: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported by the World Health Organization on 31 December 2019, and later, it was declared a global pandemic on 12 March 2020. To date, it is a great challenge to the world including Ethiopia. Therefore, to attain effective prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic, improving the knowledge, attitude, and practices of the community is necessary. OBJECTIVE: To assess, knowledge, attitudes, and practice, and associated factors of COVID-19 among Jimma Town residents. METHODS: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,500 Jimma town residents from May through June 2020. Adults aged ≥18 years were included in the study. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire that was adopted from different literature. A face-to-face interview was implemented to collect data. Analysis was done by using SPSS version 22. p < 0.05 was used to declare statistical significance. RESULT: A total of 1,500 participants were enrolled in the study. The majority of the respondents were female (59.3%). About 841 (56.1%) of the participants had knowledge about COVID-19. Educational status, household wealth index, and employment showed association with knowledge of COVID-19. Government-owned television (37.3%) was the primary source of information about COVID-19 in the Jimma population. Only 46.6% of respondents had good attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic and about 638 (42.5%) of the study participants had good practice toward COVID-19. The mean practice score was 1.98 (± 0.319). Study participants who were residing in the outskirts of the town were 0.37 less likely to apply good practice regarding COVID-19 prevention measures than those around the center of the town. Whereas, households with a family size of four to five individuals were 1.4 times more likely to show good practice against COVID-19 compared to households with ≤3 individuals (AOR: 1.41; CI: 1.05, 1.91). CONCLUSION: Jimma town community has low knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding COVID-19. Knowledge, attitude, and practice scores regarding COVID-19 are significantly related to educational status, being self-employed, occupation, marital status, residence, family size, and household relative wealth index. Preventive health advisories to upraise knowledge, attitude, and practice are crucial to prevent and control COVID-19.