Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices Toward COVID-19 in Primary Healthcare Providers: A Cross-Sectional Study from Three Tertiary Care Hospitals of Peshawar, Pakistan.

An online cross-sectional study was carried out to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among primary health care providers (PHPs) at three tertiary care hospital, Peshawar, Pakistan. Data was collected via email and online social media platforms. Statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 25.0 was used for data analysis. Among the total participants (n = 114), 74 (66.7%) were male and 37 (33.3%) were female. The mean scores for knowledge, attitude and practice were 12.7 ± 0.89, 8.9 ± 4.1 and 7.3 ± 1.2, respectively. Most of the participants knew the term COVID-19 and its mode of transmission (90%), signs and symptoms (84%) and risk factors (72%) associated with it. Most of the participants agreed that COVID-19 can be transmitted through coughing and sneezing (74.3%) and 84.6% were in favor that COVID-19 can be prevented by adopting preventive measures. Around 68.8% of the participants disagreed with the use of antibiotics in the prevention of COVID-19. Ninety percent of the respondents were avoiding close contact with the people having cough and flu-like symptoms. Most PHPs had good knowledge, positive attitude and reasonable practices regarding COVID-19. Moreover, focused training programs for PHPs at the Government level can further improve their understanding of risks and preventive strategies related to COVID-19, which will help them to provide appropriate care to their patients as well as to protect themselves from this infection.

A national study to assess pharmacists' preparedness against COVID-19 during its rapid rise period in Pakistan.

To evaluate the pharmacist's preparedness against the COVID-19 during its rapid rise period in Pakistan, an online cross-sectional study was carried out from March 30 to May 22, 2020 among the pharmacists using a pre-validated self-administered questionnaire. A total of 1149 participants completed the survey, amongst which 430(37.9%) were working as retail pharmacists, 216 (18.8%) as community pharmacists, and 213(18.5%) as hospital pharmacists. The mean COVID-19 knowledge score of the participants was 6.77±0.5, which indicated that 84% of them had good knowledge about COVID-19. The multiple linear regression model revealed that attitude was significantly associated with gender (p = 0.001), marital status (p<0.0001) and resident (p = 0.013). The mean practice score was 2.85±0.4, showing that 94% of the participants were following adequate preventive practices against this infection. The results from this study suggest that Pharmacists demonstrated good knowledge, positive attitudes, and acceptable practices regarding COVID-19.