Awareness and practice about nCovid-19 in Chinese residents: A Google form questionnaire based survey
Abstract
Corona virus pandemic was initiated from China. There is no vaccine and specific antiviral treatment available for this nCovid-19, so preventive measures play a very important role in controlling the disease. So this cross-sectional survey was conducted on Chinese residents to know their awareness and practices regarding nCovid -19 diseases. For the study purpose a questionnaire was sent to various groups of Chinese residents on 'We-Chat' from 9th March 2020 to 27th March 2020. Total of 823 filled questionnaires were received. Out of 823 responders', mean age was 38 years with M:F ratio 0.54. Mean score for awareness and practice was 82.14% and 73.44% respectively. All the study variables i.e. age, sex, education and occupation were found to associated (p value <0.001) with awareness and practices regarding nCovid-19 disease among Chinese residents. Awareness and practice score were found maximum in females, 30-45 years of age, resident with master degree and medical care persons than their counterparts.
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Introduction
This nCovid-19 disease pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing pandemic of nCovid-19 disease caused by a noval virus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The outbreak was identified in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, China, in December 2019.1 This new novel coronavirus was identified on 8 January. 2 of which sequencing was soon published on an open-access database.3 By 19th March 2020, this infection spread throughout china having 81300 cases and 3253 deaths due to coronavirus. 4
The virus is primarily spread between people during close contact through droplets produced by coughing, sneezing and talking.5 People may also get infection by touching a contaminated surface and then touching their face. On surfaces, the amount of virus declines over time until it is insufficient to remain infectious, but it may be detected for hours or days.6,7
Common symptoms of nCovid-19 include fever, cough, loss of smell, shortness of breath, myalgia and fatigue. It may get complicated to pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome.8 Infection may be spread from before the onset of symptoms to 14 days after symptoms.9 It spared very fast in susceptible population10 in special reference to the cases with co morbidity.11 There is no vaccine and specific antiviral treatment is available, so primary treatment is symptomatic and supportive.9
For better management of COVID-19 in China, there is an urgent need to understand the public’s awareness and practice of antiquates in prevention of COVID-19. So this study was designed to know the awareness and practice of antiquates in prevention of COVID-19 in Chinese residents.
Conclusion
In the present study, mean score for awareness and practice was 82.14% and 73.44% respectively. Age, sex, education and occupation were found to associated (p value <0.001) with awareness and practices regarding nCovid-19 disease among Chinese residents. Awareness and practice score were found maximum in females, 30-45 years of age, resident with master degree and medical care persons than their counterparts. As higher COVID-19 knowledge scores were found to be with higher practice scores. This suggest that health education has an important role in improving practice. So specially designed and targeted health education activities should be done.
As this study has its limitation due to limited internet access so researches based on community survey are to be conducted in future.