Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude, Practice about COVID-19 among the Medical Staff of the National Academy of Medical Sciences

INTRODUCTION: Coronavirus is highly contagious in nature, it belong to the family of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona virus (SARS-COV), which specially affect the respiratory system. Knowing about the virus transmission characteristics help to prevent the spread of this virus. World Health Organization suggests several infection prevention control (IPC) guidelines about the COVID-19. It is very important to have optimum awareness about COVID-19 for the medical persons because they have to deal with COVID-19 patient. The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice about COVID-19 among the medical staffs. METHOD: A cross-sectional descriptive study was performed at the National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS) Kathmandu Nepal. Study was performed from February 2021 to April 2021. Totally 270 medical staffs were included in study. Self-administered questionnaires were developed for data collection. Knowledge, attitude and practice scores were evaluated and the association between qualitative variables with participants characteristic was assessed using Chi-square test through SPSS version 25 and Microsoft excel. RESULTS: The total response rate was 88% (264/300) among which 202 were female and 62 male. The study shows 64% participants never attended any IPC program. This study reveals that the mean knowledge, attitude and practice score of medical staff of NAMS were 6.91±1.115, 7.60±1.169 and 6.41±1.068 respectively. Study showed statically significance between having good knowledge with working experience and positive attitude. Participants who attend IPC program had good practice regarding COVID-19 (p -value >0.005) CONCLUSION: Medical staffs of NAMS have optimal knowledge level, relatively positive attitude and average good practice in infection control for COVID -19. Regular updated infection prevention control program will enables the medical staff with good practice to deal with COVID-19.