Awareness, Knowledge and Observance of COVID-19 Non-pharmaceutical Protocols in a Tertiary Health Care Facility in Kogi State, Nigeria

Background and Aim: There appears yet to be a permanent therapy for COVID-19 as several countries of the world have deliberately adopted some measures and strategies aimed at preventing and mitigating the impact of the virus on human lives. It was on this basis that the study investigated the extent of awareness, knowledge and the use of non-pharmaceutical protocols in COVID-19 prevention among the Health Care Workers (HCWs) of Kogi State University Teaching Hospital (KSUTH), Anyigba, Kogi State. Methods: It was survey research that relied completely on the use of a structured, close-ended questionnaire to study 226 health workers through an internet-based Open Data Kit (ODK). Meanwhile, descriptive statistics were used for the analysis of the data and it was facilitated by the deployment of SPSS version 23 software. Results: The results showed that most of the health care workers (59%) are males. The medical/ clinical staff accounted for 38.3% of the total workforce. There was high awareness and knowledge of the disease among the workers even as social media remained the most source of information for them. Apart from skin rash, all the clinical symptoms such as high fever, coughing, vomiting, elevated body temperature, sore throat and runny nose, and flu were correctly identified. Except for greetings by handshake, all the non-pharmaceutical protocols were observed by the workers. Moreover, the study established a significant association between awareness and knowledge of the disease and observance of the non-pharmaceutical preventive protocols. Conclusion: The authors concluded that observance of the non-pharmaceutical protocols remained probably the best approach to containing COVID-19 for now because even the various vaccines being produced across the world have not been able to completely eliminate the pandemic.