ASSESSMENT OF KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE ABOUT COVID-19 AMONG HEALTH CARE WORKERS INVOLVING IN VARIOUS AEROSOL GENERATING PROCEDURES

Background: Post-COVID, the importance of the particle and aerosol generation has gained much significance. Hence in the present study we assessed the knowledge and practice about COVID-19 among health care workers involving in various aerosol generating procedures. Methods: We piloted a questionnaire based descriptive cross-sectional study at various aerosol generating departments of KIST Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Imadol, Nepal from June 2020 to December 2020 with IEC No: 076/077/42. All the health care workers at same departments were included. The self- administered questionnaire had two sections; knowledge and practice. The responses noted and analyzed using the 2 tailed multivariate regressions to estimate influencing factors. Results: We observed that the about one third of the respondents get information about COVID-19 mainly from TV and social media. In the multivariate model, source of information, type of health institution and knowledge of COVID-19 are strongly associated with preventive practice of health care workers. HCWs who had good knowledge on COVID-19 were 2 times more likely implement good preventive practice. Conclusions: Type of health facilities, level of education, training on COVID, work experience, type of source of information were significantly associated with knowledge, and practice of HCWs toward COVID-19. Various aerosol generating departments showed good knowledge and practice. Among all OMFS department showed good knowledge and practice as compared to other departments of Dentistry. Also knowledge and practice of Departments of Medicine, Anesthesia, Emergency, Pediatrics and ENT showed good.