Determining the Knowledge, Attitude and Perception towards COVID-19 among Newly Recruited Surveillance Team in Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria: How justified are we in the Recruitment?

BACKGROUND:In the current pandemic, real-time analyses of epidemiological data generated from a reliable source are required for increasing awareness about COVID-19. Therefore, it is important to assess the perception of risk of the surveillance team that would be deployed, as this will contribute to their commitment towards rapid surveillance of COVID-19. OBJECTIVE:This study assessed the knowledge, attitude and perception towards COVID-19 among newly recruited surveillance team in Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria. METHODS:A descriptive cross-sectional study, with the respondents being active surveillance volunteers recruited by the World Health Organization. One hundred respondents were purposively recruited and data collection was done using a pretested self-administered, semi-structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 25; bivariate and multivariate analyses were done using Chi-square and binary logistic regression respectively at 5% level of significance. RESULTS:The mean age of the study participants was 37.1 ± 11.9 years. Of all the respondents, 58.6% had poor knowledge of COVID-19. Less than half of the respondents (44.8%) had negative attitude towards COVID-19 while majority (90.8%) of them had low risk perception about COVID-19. The binary logistic regression analysis revealed that married respondents had significantly lesser odds (67%) of having poor knowledge about COVID-19 compared with the respondents who were single/Widowed/Widower. (aOR; 0.33, CI; 0.04 - 0.88). CONCLUSION:The study highlights the poor knowledge, negative attitude, as well as low risk perception about COVID-19 among newly recruited active surveillance workers. Hence, targeted health educational interventions are urgently needed for the surveillance team, most especially in this second wave of COVID-19.