Abstract:
Background: COVID-19 is the newly emerged disease in the world. Upon the first confirmed in
December 2019 in Wuhan city of China, it becomes the global burden, and attacks both
developed and developing countries.
Objectives: To assess the knowledge, practice level, and associated factors of COVID-19
prevention among the rural community in Semen Bench district, southwestern Ethiopia.
Method: Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted, from May 10 to July 25, 2020.
A total of 768 study participants were included in this study. Data was collected through face to
face interviews with structured questionnaires adapted from different published articles. Data
was entered into Epi-data version 4.4, and exported into SPSS version 23 and analyzed using
descriptive, binary logistic, and multivariable logistic regression to identify associated factors
with p-value < 0.05 on knowledge and practice level toward COVID-19. Finally, the result was
presented in texts, graphs, and tables.
Result: Of 720 subjects were participated in the study making response rate 93.8%. Accordingly,
the mean knowledge and practice score were 4.81 and 1.83 respectively. More than half of the
participants, 398 (55.3%) and 482 (66.9%) had good knowledge and practice to prevent COVID19 respectively. Good prevention practice (AOR= 2.04, 95% CI: (1.50, 2.83) p=0.000, and those
family size >=5 (AOR= 1.61, 95% CI: (1.11, 2.33) p= 0.012 were significantly associated with
good knowledge toward COVID-19. Similarly, married participants (AOR= 1.81, 95% CI: (1.22,
2.69) p= 0.003, Secondary education (AOR= 1.78, 95% CI: (1.19, 2.98) p= 0.028, being student
(AOR=2.27,95%CI:(1.19,4.36) p=0.014 were significantly associated with good practice toward
COVID-19 prevention.
Conclusion: Almost more than fifty percent of the participants had good knowledge and practice
toward COVID-19 prevention, but it is not enough to reduce the transmission. Therefore, the
Semen Bench district Health department and Health Extension Workers should better to work
together on awareness and practices toward COVID-19 prevention for the rural communities.
