Emergence of COVID-19 infection and Healthcare Workers in Karachi, Pakistan

Objective: The objective of the study was to investigate the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) re-garding novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among healthcare workers in Karachi Pakistan. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted at medical unit 3, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi by using a self-reported questionnaire-based survey from March 2020 to May 2020. A convenience sampling technique was used to recruit the consenting HCWs of all categories (doctors, nurses, pharmacists and technicians) who were currently providing services at different hospitals of Karachi. The non-consenting and unavailable doctors were excluded from this study. The questionnaire was developed by using the frequently asked questions from the WHO and Centre for Disease Control (CDC). The healthcare workers knowledge, attitude and practices related to COVID-19 were used as outcomes. Healthcare workers were approached by investigators and survey instrument was made accessible through a link on social media (WhatsApp, Facebook, and emails). Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the odds ratio with 95% confidence interval for KAP of HCWs regarding COVID-19. P-values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 553 subjects completed the study questionnaire. However, data of 547 (98.9%) par-ticipants was selected for inclusion in final analysis after excluding 6 respondents. HCWs gross category and clinical setting were found to be statistically associated with overall KAP (P<0.001 and P=0.048, respectively). Upon logistic regression analysis, KAP scores statistically differed across genders (p coefficient=2.115, SE =0.179 and P<0.001), age groups (p coefficient=2.098, SE =0.138 and P<0.001) and HCWs gross category (p coefficient=2.053, SE=0.135 and P<0.001). The nurses and technicians were found less likely for good KAP with reference to COVID-19 as compared to doctors and pharmacists. These results were found to be statistically significant with P-value less than 0.05; the odds for nurses and technicians were 0.35 and 0.10, respectively. Conclusion: The study demonstrated that HCWs had good knowledge, optimistic attitude and decent practice towards recent COVID-19 pandemic. However, their source of information regarding COVID-19 is not reliable and can adversely influence the KAP.