Misconceptions of COVID-19 pandemic among a sample of general public in Baghdad Iraq 2021: A Cross sectional survey

Objectives: to determine the misconceptions regarding COVID -19 pandemic among adults attending the three primary healthcare centers in Baghdad, Iraq. Methods: Three primary health care centers were conveniently chosen to recruit adults attending them (using systematic sampling technique of every fifth attendee) and interview them to answer a special questionnaire form concerned with globally and locally spreading myths and misconceptions regarding COVID-19 pandemic and consisted of two part one for reporting demographic characteristics and the other consisted of 19 questions to assess people perceptions towards COVID-19 pandemic. Each question had two scores either zero for wrong response or one for correct one. Scores below 10 were considered bad perception and ≥10 were considered good perceptions. Results: The study included 400 participants; 235 (58.8%) were females with a female: male ratio of 1.4:1, their age ranged from 18-82 years with a mean of 40.2 ± 14.6 years SD, more than half of them (224; 56.0%) were ≤40 years of age, 272 (68.0%) were either governmental employee or working in private sector, 214 (53.4%) were with college education and higher and 300 (75.0%) were ever married. Good perception scores were found in 21.2% of the participants, Males, younger age groups, higher educational levels, ever married participants and those who were working privately had higher proportions of good perceptions toward COVID-19 pandemic, yet the associations were only statistically significant with age group and educational level. Conclusions: Good perception regarding COVID-19 pandemic was low.