AUTHOR=Lee Felix , Suryohusodo Aileen Alessandra 

TITLE=Knowledge, attitude, and practice assessment toward COVID-19 among communities in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia: A cross-sectional study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.957630

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.957630

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Objective</title><p>This research aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice toward COVID-19 among East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) population and identify associated sociodemographic factors.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>A cross-sectional study was performed among communities in 22 regencies of NTT between October–November 2021 using a structured and validated questionnaire that consists of 22-items of knowledge, 6-items of attitude and 13-items of practice related COVID-19 questions. A cut off point of at least 70% was employed to categorize good knowledge, attitude, and practice.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>The percentages of survey respondents showing good knowledge, attitude and practice toward COVID-19 were 79.8, 72.7, and 94.6%, respectively. There was a significant positive, though weak, linear correlation between knowledge and practice scores (ρ = 0.097; <italic>p</italic> = 0.049). Knowledge was strongly associated with regency of residence (Cramer's V = 0.266; <italic>p</italic> = 0.010), education (Cramer's V = 0.312; <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001), and occupation (Cramer's V = 0.313; <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001). Attitude and practice had strong relationship with regency of residence (Cramer's V = 0.289; <italic>p</italic> = 0.024) and education (Cramer's V = 0.272; <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001), respectively.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>Nearly all survey participants showed good precautionary behaviors, but there was still a quarter of respondents indicated poor knowledge and attitude. There was also a positive relationship between knowledge and practice scores thereby indicating the importance of local public health advocates to distribute information uniformly especially to the groups with inadequate knowledge toward COVID-19 as a means to control the virus transmission.</p></sec>