Knowledge, attitudes and preventive practices towards COVID-19 among prenatal women in an antenatal clinic in Sakaka City, Aljouf region: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

It is known that prenatal women with COVID-19 are more liable to severe disease and poor newborn outcomes. Understanding the effects of this pandemic on prenatal women is still not known. Studies have shown that gravid women are more liable to COVID-19 infection because of changed physiology and immunological characters. So, this study aimed to investigate gravid women’s knowledge, attitudes, and preventive practices to avoid COVID-19 in Sakaka city, Al jouf region, Saudi Arabia. A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted with 150 gravid women in Sakaka City. The samples were achieved using a simple random sampling technique from February to March, 2022. The data were collected by face-to-face survey with a planned and pre-tested survey and analyzed by SPSS. The study tool consists of six sections including. The demographics of the prenatal women, knowledge about COVID-19, Participants' attitudes, symptom, practices of prenatal women toward COVID-19. The results showed that the percentage of score of good knowledge before awareness was (34.0%), and the percentage of score of good knowledge after awareness was (73.33%) and the score of practices of prenatal women of good practices before awareness was (33.33%), and the percentage of score of good practices after awareness increased to (91.33%).The percentage of change between score of knowledge and practices of prenatal women before awareness was - 0.67 but percentage of change between score of knowledge and practices of prenatal women after awareness increased to +18%. Although most study members had good knowledge about the preventative measures of COVID-19, they did not practice them, bur their practices increased after awareness. The study recommended that the awareness should be extended to rural areas where access to electronic media is limited.