Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices and Perceived Barriers Among Mental Health Professionals in Sudanese Psychiatric Hospitals Regarding COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

Background: Since March 11, 2020, COVID-19 has been declared as a pandemic by WHO, it has caused substantial morbidity and mortality globally thus knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) related to the COVID-19 outbreak are one of the priorities in such a pandemic. KAP in a non-COVID facility, such as a psychiatric institution needs to be addressed. Aims: To assess mental health professionals knowledge, attitude, and practice working Sudanese in psychiatric facilitatesMethods: A cross-sectional self-administered questionnaire targeting the whole population of mental health professionals(MHPs) which is 141, was conducted at three psychiatric facilities in Khartoum state , Sudan. 89 agreed to participate in the study consisting of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatric nurses staff participated in the study. Results: 70.8% of MHP’s in this study had adequate knowledge of COVID-19 symptomatology, transmission, management, and preventive measures. 44.9% were not willing to take COVID19 vaccine. Good practices like maintaining quarantine during outbreak and wearing a medical mask were observed. The significant difference found in Spearman’s correlation was between knowledge and attitude which was negative correlation. Findings showed that MHPs (37.1%,N=33) had positive Practice,(57.3%,N=51) had positive attitude regarding COVID-19. MHPs perceived that lack of an official specialized in infection control ,overcrowding in psychiatric patients’ room and Lack of policy procedures of infection control practice were the major barriers to infection control. Inferential analysis indicated that Social workers showing higher knowledge (mean=57.95) than other MHPs (P=0.009) and psychiatrist showed higher attitude (62.63). Conclusions: This study found that MHPs in Sudan have good knowledge, and suggest a special need to scale up facilities’ infection control materials to meet the required good practice.