Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Toward Prevention and Early Detection of COVID-19 and Associated Factors Among Religious Clerics and Traditional Healers in Gondar Town, Northwest Ethiopia: A Community-Based Study

Abstract

Background

COVID-19 control measures efforts are affected by the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the public, particularly religious clerics and traditional healers, who have close contact and are widely accepted by a significant number of community members.

Methods

A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted to determine knowledge, attitudes and practices towards COVID-19 and its associated factors among religious clerics and traditional healers in Gondar town. Study participants who met our inclusion criteria were selected using a simple random sampling technique. Data were collected by trained data collectors through face-to-face interviews. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. Knowledge, attitudes and practices scores were calculated to give the overall knowledge, attitude and practice score. Binary logistic regression was fitted to identify associated factors and odds ratio was used to measure the strength of the association.

Results

A total of 410 religious clerics and traditional healers were included in the study with a response rate of 97.1%. Of the total participants, 60.7% (95%: CI (56–65%)) had good knowledge, 34.1% (95%: CI (30–39%)) had a positive attitude and 15.6% (95%: CI (12–19%)) had good practices towards prevention and early detection of COVID-19. Less than one third of the participants practiced physical distancing (28%) and facemask use (17.8%). In multivariate logistic regression, age, educational status and marital status were significantly associated with knowledge score. Likewise, age and marital status were significantly associated with the positive attitude score. In addition, age, educational status, and the presence of underlying disease were significantly associated with the good practice score.

Conclusion

Majority of the participants had poor practice and negative attitudes. Therefore, there should be a sensitization program to fill the gap in the knowledge, attitudes and practice measures of COVID-19 especially for elderly and illiterates.

Keywords:

• knowledge
• attitude
• practice
• COVID-19
• religious clerics
• traditional healers
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the University of Gondar for technical and financial support and sincerely thank the study participants for their voluntary participation.

Abbreviations

AOR, adjusted odds ratio; CDC, Communicable Disease Control; CI, confidence interval; COR, crude odds ratio; COVID-19, Coronavirus Disease 2019; EPHI, Ethiopia Public Health Institute; SPSS, Statistical Package for Social Science; TH, traditional healer; WHO, World Health Organization.

Data Sharing Statement

Most of the data generated during this study are included in this published article and additional data will be made available upon request to the corresponding author.

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

Ethical clearance was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of the University of Gondar. All eligible study participants were informed about the purpose of the study, and interviews were held only with those who agreed to give written consent to participate. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent for Publication

All participants provided written informed consent to publish this study.

Author Contributions

All authors made substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; took part in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; agreed to submit to the current journal; gave final approval of the version to be published; and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

The authors declare that they have no competing interests in this work.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the University of Gondar. The University of Gondar was not involved in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation and manuscript writing.