Community Risk Perception and Compliance with Preventive Measures for COVID-19 Pandemic in Ethiopia

Purpose: This study assessed the community's level of risk perception of COVID-19, their compliance with recommended precautionary measures, and factors that influence compliance behavior. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional online survey administered using google forms. Data were collected from 521 respondents using various social media channels, including e-mail, Facebook, messenger, telegram, and IMO. Results: About 9 in 10 respondents (90.4%) perceived that they are susceptible to COVID-19. Nearly 9 in 10 participants (87.5%) perceived that COVID-19 is a serious disease. The majority of respondents (81%) got information about COVID-19 from television and social networking sites. The regression analyses revealed that compliance with preventive behaviors is differed by respondents' socio-demographic characteristics. Being female (beta: 0.094, P<0.05), higher perceived effectiveness of recommended preventive measures (beta: 0.367, P<0.001), and higher perceived reliability of media (beta: 0.189, P<0.001) facilitated compliance with preventive measures. On the other hand, increasing age (beta: -0.096, P<0.05), being single (beta: -0.127, P<0.01), lower education level (beta: -0.168, P<0.01), and living at a lower administrative level were barriers to be compliant with preventive measures. Conclusion: The majority of the respondents exercised one or more of the recommended preventive measures to avoid COVID-19 infection. Most of the respondents got information about COVID-19 from television and social networking sites. Given that about 80% of the Ethiopian population is living in rural areas without television and higher illiteracy rate to use social networking sites, concerned bodies should introduce tailored interventions to impart knowledge about COVID-19 infection and mitigating measures. Limitations: Although the sampling procedure was random through the online system, it might not be representative to study the perception and compliance of people towards COVID-19 prevention practices at a country level due to its small size. Thus, the interpretation of the study findings needs to consider this limitation.