Knowledge, attitudes, and practices about COVID-19 among Kashmiri population: A cross-sectional study

Nations across the globe are investing enormous resources to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Assessing community knowledge and behavior could help in designing effective health-care policies tailored to the need of target population.

We aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) about COVID-19 among Kashmiri population and to determine the association of KAP scores with the sociodemographic variables.

This was a cross-sectional study conducted via various online platforms.

A structured questionnaire was formulated which was divided into three scoring sections assessing KAP about COVID-19 and a nonscoring section assessing individual reactions. A link to the survey was disseminated through social media platforms. A total of 1051 individuals participated.

Descriptive statistics were used for assessing the demographic characteristics of participants. Inferential statistics (Mann-Whitney U-test and Kruskal-Wallis test) were used for comparison.

Majority of the participants belonged to the age group of 20-39 years (75.4%), were unmarried (66.6%), were from urban background (54.9%), and had education of above high school (96.3%). In general, scores suggested that participants possessed adequate knowledge (mean ± standard deviation: 10.07 ± 1.134), had good attitudes (11.85 ± 1.42), and followed good practices (12.26 ± 1.42) regarding COVID-19. However, we found the correlations between KAP scores to be weak.

A knowledge-praxis gap was highlighted in the studied population which was especially true for the vulnerable age group of > 60 years. The findings call for attention of health-care policymakers to design need-based, locally adaptable, and practicable interventional strategies for target population.