Knowledge, attitude, and preventive practices towards COVID-19 and associated factors among adult hospital visitors in South Gondar Zone Hospitals, Northwest Ethiopia

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is currently the critical health problem of the globe, including Ethiopia. Visitors of healthcare facilities are the high-risk groups due to the presence of suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the healthcare setting. Increasing the knowledge, attitude, and practices towards COVID-19 prevention among hospital visitors are very important to prevent transmissions of the pandemic despite the lack of evidence remains a challenge in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the status of knowledge, attitude, and preventive practice towards COVID-19 and associated factors among hospital visitors in South Gondar Zone Hospitals, Northwest Ethiopia. Methods A facility-based cross-sectional study design was employed during August 1 to 30, 2020 from randomly selected 404 adult hospital visitors in South Gondar Zone Hospitals, Northwest Ethiopia. The data was collected using interviewer-administered questionnaire. The outcome of this study was good or poor knowledge, positive or negative attitude and good or poor preventive practice towards COVID-19. Three different binary logistic regression models with 95% CI (Confidence interval) was used for data analysis. For each mode, bivariable analysis (crude odds ratio [COR]) and multivariable analysis (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]) was used during data analysis. From the bivariable analysis, variables with a p-value <0.25 were retained into the multivariable logistic regression analysis. From the multivariable logistic regression analysis, variables with a significance level of p-value <0.05 were taken as factors independently associated with knowledge, attitude and preventive practices towards COVID-19. Main findings About 69.3% of the respondents had good knowledge, 62.6% had a positive attitude, and 49.3% had good preventive practice towards the prevention of COVID-19. We found that factors significantly associated with good knowledge about COVID-19 were educational status who can read and write (AOR = 2.78; 95%CI: 1.18–6.56) and college and above (AOR = 6.15; 95%CI: 2.18–17.40), and use of social media (AOR = 2.96; 95%CI: 1.46–6.01). Furthermore, factors significantly associated with a positive attitude towards COVID-19 includes the presence of chronic illnesses (AOR = 5.00; 95%CI; 1.71–14.67), training on COVID-19 (AOR = 3.91; 95%CI: 1.96–7.70), and peer/family as a source of information (AOR = 2.45; 95%CI: 1.06–5.63). Being a student (AOR = 7.70; 95%CI: 1.15–15.86) and participants who had a good knowledge on COVID-19 (AOR = 4.49; 95%CI: 2.41–8.39) were factors significantly associated with good practice towards COVID-19. Conclusion We found that knowledge, attitude, and preventive practices towards prevention of COVID-19 among adult hospital visitors were low. Therefore, we recommended that different intervention strategies for knowledge, attitude and preventive practices are urgently needed to control the transmission of COVID-19 among adult hospital visitors. Health education of those who could not read and write about COVID-19 knowledge issues and advocating use of social media that transmit messages about COVID-19 are highly encouraged to increase the good knowledge status of adult hospital visitors. Furthermore, providing training about COVID-19 prevention methods and using various sources of information about COVID-19 will help for improving positive attitude towards COVID-19 prevention, whereas for increasing the status of good preventive practices towards COVID-19, improving the good knowledge about COVID-19 of adult hospital visitors are essential.