Study of Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Related to Covid-19 among Industry Practitioners in Industrial Areas

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly effects on health of workforce as the most important source of manpower in maintaining business and the community economy. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the knowledge, attitudes and practices related to COVID-19 and its effective factors among industry practitioners in industrial areas.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in Tehran industrial city from October to December 2020. Data from 494 practitioner’s industry were collected through survey questionnaire including demographic and a 35-item questionnaire to assess the status of knowledge, attitude and practices to the COVID-19 prevention guidelines. The content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by the experts of Occupational health and Epidemiology and performed by two relative content validity coefficients, the Content Validity Ratio (CVR) and Content Validity Index (CVI), which were 0.78 and 0.85, respectively. Additionally, reliability was proved through a pilot study to calculate Cronbach’s alpha and determined to be 0.81. Descriptive analyses and chi-square tests and Pearson rank correlation analyses were performed to determine factors associated with knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards COVID-19. Data analysis was performed using STATA software version 17 with a significance level of P <0. 05.

The mean and standard deviation of practitioner’s knowledge was 19.68 ± 3.55, their attitude was 14.74 ± 3.45 and their performance was 7.97 ± 0.91. Educational level (r=0.19, p=0.015) and marital status as employees (r=0.24, p=0.042) were directly correlated with attitude and practice, respectively. Also, the results of Pearson correlation test showed that there is a positive and significant correlation between knowledge and attitude (r = 0.11, P = 0.01) and attitude and practice (r = 0.98, P = 0.001).

The results of the present study showed the need to increase awareness through training courses and positive attitude of the studied practitioner in order to strengthen suitable practices and motivate them to take appropriate preventive measures against COVID-19.