Abstract:
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the way we live and has created a large uncertainty on what to expect, more so for the pregnant women who are presumably more susceptible. Thus far, it has been identified that non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) have been the easiest and most effective way to control the spread and to protect one’s self. We, therefore, like to assess the knowledge and practice of preventive measures against COVID-19 among pregnant women.
Objective: To assess the Knowledge and preventive practice taken by pregnant women against COVID at St. Peter specialized hospital
Methods: It is a facility based cross-sectional study which was conducted from January 2020 to April 2021, with a structured pretested questionnaire to collect information from eligible pregnant women. After completion of data collection, data entry was made using EPI info version 7, then exported to SPSS and analysis was done by using SPSS. To determine the association between the dependent and independent variables, statistical analysis and logistic regression of 95% confidence interval and odds ratio was used .To control the effect of confounder variable adjusted odds ratio was used with P<0.05, which was considered to be statistically significant.
Results: Of the 405 participants 63.5% of them had good knowledge, and being married, college education, radio ownership and high risk ANC clinic follow up were significantly associated with knowledge on multivariate analysis, and of the 405 participants 58% of them had good practice with monthly income, college education, radio ownership and high risk ante natal care follow up being significantly associated with COVID 19 preventive and transmission practice. The odds of having good knowledge about COVID 19 preventive and transmission ways is 2.85 times higher for those having good practice.
Conclusion & Recommendation: 63.5% of participants has good knowledge and 58% of them has a good practice. The odds of having good knowledge about COVID 19 preventive and transmission ways is 2.85 times higher(P=0.000) for those having good practice. A lot more need to be done by all stakeholders to increase the knowledge and practice of the transmission and prevention methods of COVID giving due emphasis to the high risk groups of the society like pregnant women and a large scale multi sectorial collaboration is mandatory to prevent the suspected subsequent surges and the devastating consequences.
............................... Thesis available at ACIPH Library