Effect of telephone counselling on the knowledge, attitude and practices of contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Egypt.
Afr J Prim Health Care Fam Med 2021;
13:e1-e10. [PMID:
34342477 PMCID:
PMC8335772 DOI:
10.4102/phcfm.v13i1.2852]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2020] [Revised: 04/27/2021] [Accepted: 05/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging respiratory illness. The World Health Organization declared it a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020 and called for collaborative efforts, such as contact tracing and promoting the public awareness about COVID-19, and recommended prevention and control measures.
Aim
The aim of this study was to assess the effect of telephone counselling on the knowledge, attitude and practices (KAPs) of contacts of COVID-19 confirmed cases towards COVID-19 epidemiology and infection prevention and control measures.
Setting
Ten areas in Sharkia Governorate, Egypt divided into six rural and four urban areas.
Methods
A non-randomised controlled trial was conducted in Sharkia Governorate, Egypt, from 26 March 2020 to 12 April 2020 on 208 contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases, divided equally into two groups: an experiment group that was exposed to telephone counselling by the researchers and a control group that was exposed to routine surveillance by local health authority. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to assess the KAP of both groups towards COVID-19 before and after intervention.
Results
After intervention the percent of contacts who achieved good knowledge, positive attitudes and better practice scores in the experimental group was 91.3%, 57.8% and 71.2%, respectively, compared with 13.5%, 7.8% and 16.3%, respectively, in the control group. Male gender and working group were significantly associated with bad practice score. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant positive correlation between differences in knowledge, attitudes and practices of the experimental group before and after the intervention.
Conclusion
This study proved the effectiveness of telephone counselling in improving COVID-19-related KAP scores of contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases.
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