Adherence to covid-19 prevention protocols among adults residing in Kitui central sub-county, Kitui County, Kenya

Abstract

COVID -19 is an infectious respiratory disease caused by the newly discovered corona virus (SARS-CoV-2). In Kenya, the national government through the Ministry of Health in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO) laid out behavioral and social mitigation approaches such as social distancing, wearing face mask in public, movement restrictions, working from home, hand washing with soap and sanitizers and vaccination among others in order to control the spread of COVID-19. The implementation of these measures was downscaled to all counties with more enforcement on the ones severely affected. Despite the government enforcement mechanisms to ensure adherence to these measures, non-adherence to some of the measures was reported. Additionally, hesitancy to uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine was widely reported in most parts of Kenya. This study aimed to determine community knowledge, attitude and practices on the adherence to COVID-19 mitigation measures among adults residing in Kitui Central Sub-County. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional study design, with data collected using semistructured questionnaires. A sample of 384 respondents was calculated using Fishers formula. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 25.0software. On the knowledge about COVID-19, 96.6% had heard about COVID-19 with majority (53.7%) getting the information from Television. Majority of the respondents (52.5%) knew COVID-19 is a killer disease while 48.2% knew it is a highly infectious disease. Among the participants, 66.9% knew the signs of COVID-19 and 80.7% knew putting of facemask as a prevention method. On the attitude, 50.9% adhere to COVID-19 prevention protocols because they fear it is very infectious. On the practices, the results showed that 59.5% always adhered, 38.0% sometimes adhered while 2.5% never adhered to handwashing with soap and running water. About 51% of respondents were vaccinated for Covid-19. Those who reported to always adhere to wearing of face mask as recommended were 50.6%, while 38.0% reported to adhere sometimes to face mask wearing. Chi square was used to assess association and causation using SPSS for windows version 25. Results revealed a significant difference (p<.05) between respondents who had knowledge on the COVID- 19 prevention protocols and those who did not (χ2=0.10; df=1; p=.00). From the multiple regression analysis, knowledge, perception and practices were statistically significant (p<.05).From the principal component analysis on knowledge, attitude, or practises, the first component had the highest variance 4.284 explains with the highest Eigen value of 30.601%. This implies that the 30.601 of variation in attitude is influenced by hand washing as the first component and consequently adherence to COVID-19 protocols.