Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Regarding COVID amongGovernment High School Teachers of Mandya, Karnataka

Introduction

Corona virus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered corona virus. Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. Older people and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness. The best way to prevent and slow down transmission is being well informed about the COVID-19 virus, the disease it causes and how it spreads. Protect yourself and others from infection by washing your hands or using an alcohol based rub frequently and not touching your face. The COVID-19 virus spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes, so it’s important that you also practice respiratory etiquette (for example, by coughing into a flexed elbow).

At this time, there are no specific vaccines or treatments for COVID-19. However, there are many ongoing clinical trials evaluating potential treatments. WHO will continue to provide updated information as soon as clinical findings become available¹ ?

The first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Kerala's Thrissur district.² By June end, the total corona cases in India crossed 5,00,000 with 15,500 deaths.³ This study was undertaken to determine the knowledge, attitude and practice of high school teachers of Mandya so as to prepare training session towards preparing the teachers for COVID surveillance duty.

Materials and methods

This cross-sectional study was conducted among government high school teachers from in and around Mandya city in June 2020. The first few cases were found in Mandya and surveillance and monitoring was carried out by health workers, ASHA and anganwadi workers. After the cases increased in Mandya city in May and June, more personnel were required for surveillance and monitoring activities. For that high school teachers from schools in and around Mandya city were deputed.

These teachers had no formal training and have received most of the information from mass media. Hence to train them regarding surveillance and monitoring activities we needed to know their perception regarding COVID. Institution ethics committee approval was obtained. All teachers present at the time gave informed consent to participate in the study. Those who were aged less than 55 years were included and those with co morbid conditions like diabetes, heart disease were excluded.

The study subjects were interviewed using a semistructured questionnaire which included 3 parts. Part (1) included knowledge regarding various aspects of CoViD-19, part (2) included their feelings towards the various aspects of effects of the CoViD-19 pandemic and lockdown and part (3) included practices being followed by the subjects to prevent getting CoViD-19. Ethical clearance was obtained from the institutional ethics committee prior to the study.

Analysis was done using Epi info software and descriptive statistics like mean, and proportions were used to categorize the data.

Results

A total of 126 teachers were interviewed. 58.3% were male and 41.7% were females. Age range was 32 years to 53 years. 44.8% were from the school situated in Mandya city and 55.2% were from the villages situated near Mandya city. All the teachers had their bachelor’s degree.

All the study participants knew that COVID is a communicable disease caused by virus.

Almost all respondents knew that a person would get COVID when an infected person coughed nearby. Most knew about sneezing while few realized that it could be transmitted by hands and fomites. Almost all participants knew that cough was a symptom of COVID while most of them knew that so was sneezing. Many knew that breathlessness is a symptom of COVID and many knew that COVID patients could be asymptomatic. Many thought that COVID is a highly fatal disease. Many thought that the elderly and persons who had diseases were more likely to get COVID. Many felt that adult males were more likely to get it as they were more likely to go outside the house. Nearly half of them thought that young children were at higher risk. While almost all knew that wearing mask and social distancing prevented COVID transmission, most mentioned hand hygiene too. Nearly half knew about hand hygiene and most knew that a vaccine is not available. Almost all knew that nasal or oral swab is taken to diagnose COVID. Some teachers told about X-ray, blood test and sputum tests.

With regard to becoming a COVID-19 patient, half of the participants were afraid, a quarter were very afraid and the remaining quarter were less/not afraid. More than half thought that the chances of them getting infected is moderate or more. 78.5% were afraid or very afraid of getting quarantined/ isolated. Most felt that the lockdown was effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Many opined that the lockdown had little effect on them physically. Nearly 30% reported that the lockdown had a larger effect on them mentally and about 30% said that it affected them moderately.

With regard to their preventive practices, most of them had started wearing mask whenever they stepped out of the home. It was strictly followed by about 25% of the teachers. Strict social distancing was followed by about 12% of the respondents but another 70% followed it most of the time. Increased hand hygiene was reported by more than 60% of the participants had stopped greeting by shaking hands. Most teachers followed cough etiquette. Most stated that they avoided social gatherings to a large extent. Many had never met their friends and relatives after the lockdown was announced.

Discussion:

Schools and teachers play a vital role in sharing the accurate information and science based facts about COVID 19 in order to protect themselves, their families and communities from COVID 19. It is important to know how much the teachers are aware regarding the present COVID 19 situation. In our study most of the teachers had good knowledge regarding COVID 19. All subjects in our study agreed to the fact that COVID 19 is a communicable disease but it was low in a study done by Roy D et al in Uttar Pradesh, where less than half of the participants considered it as a communicable disease.⁴

In our study many thought that transmission could be mainly by coughing and sneezing which is similar to other studies.5-8 However it was very less in a study done by Roy D et al in Uttar Pradesh where less than one fourth of their participants believed that sneezing could spread COVID 19. 4 More than 90% of our study participants knew that ‘fever’ could be main symptom of COVID 19 which was similar to a study done in Aurangabad, Maharashtra.⁵ Whereas in a study done by Maheshwari et al in Dehradun the response was slightly less (86%).⁶

According to Ministry of Health and Family welfare, Government of India, older persons and persons with pre-existing medical conditions appear to develop serious illness more often than others.⁹ In our study less than three fourth of the participants were aware of this whereas in a study done in Dehradun more than 80% of participants were aware of such risk factors of COVID 19.⁶ In our study nearly half of the participants were afraid of getting COVID infection, whereas in a study done by Roy D et al less than two-fifth were afraid of acquiring the infection.⁴

With regard to preventive measures in COVID 19, majority of our study participants agreed wearing mask always and frequent hand washing could prevent COVID 19. Whereas the study done in Maharashtra showed a mixed responses with regard to preventive practices where less than two-fifth said wearing mask regularly could prevent COVID 19 but the response was similar to our study considering hand hygiene as a preventive measure.⁵ Though the knowledge was good with regard to preventive practices in our study participants, in actual practice it was not satisfactory. Less than three fourth of our study participants wore mask regularly and practiced frequent hand washing. This shows our participants were aware of preventive practices but without proper behavioural change. So more training should be conducted among the teachers which could help them in following good practices and also understand the importance of prevention with regard to COVID 19. However, a study done by Prakash S et al in Maharashtra showed almost all of their study subjects practiced frequent hand washing and more than half of them wore mask regularly.⁵

Conclusion

In our study, overall knowledge regarding transmission, symptoms, diagnosis and preventive measures were known to majority of them. There was a lack of knowledge regarding fatality rate, other preventive measures like cough etiquette and vaccine. With regard to their practices those who followed strict preventive practices was very low. So importance of preventive measures should be emphasized more for behavioural change. Since schools and teachers play a vital role in spreading accurate information to the students more training sessions regarding COVID- 19 should be conducted among them so that their family, students and community could be benefited.