Knowledge, attitudes and practices related to Covid-19 among health professionals in El Jadida Province, Morocco.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns were raised about the lack of knowledge and awareness of health workers (HW) in hampering the implementation of COVID-19 preventive strategies in hospitals.

Objective: This cross-sectional study aims to explore the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of the health workers related to COVID-19 in Moroccan hospitals and health facilities.

Materials and methods: We administered an adapted questionnaire to 242 HW working in Azemmour and El Jadida hospital (two sites) and in 41 health centers in El Jadida province. We carried out a bivariate analysis and used contingency tables and logistic regression models to identify factors associated with different KAP levels.

Results: We found that 90.1%, 8.3% and 60.3% of HW had respectively high levels of knowledge, risk perception attitudes and preventive practices towards COVID-19. High level of knowledge was associated with gender (OR: 0.267; 95% CI: 0.113-0.634; p=0.002), and professional profile (p<0.001). Levels of attitudes were associated with gender (OR: 17.143; 95% CI: 5.450-53.932; p<0.001) whereas levels of preventive practices were associated with position of the HW in COVID-19 (frontline or not frontline) (OR: 0.404; 95% CI: 0.236-0.691; p=0.001) and the overworked status of the HW (OR: 0.421; 95% CI: 0.242-0.730; p=0.002).

Conclusion: Professionals' knowledge and practice levels were higher than their COVID-19 risk perception attitudes. Therefore, efforts should be made to improve the attitudes of health professionals.