Awareness, Attitudes, Prevention, and Perceptions of COVID-19 Outbreak among Nurses in Saudi Arabia

Reem Al-Dossary, Majed Alamri, Hamdan Albaqawi, Khaled Al Hosis, Mohammed Aljeldah, Mohammed Aljohan, Khalid Aljohani, Noura Almadani, Bader Alrasheadi, Rawaih Falatah and Joseph Almazan
Additional contact information
Reem Al-Dossary: Nursing Education Department Nursing College, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Dammam 34221, Saudi Arabia
Majed Alamri: Nursing Department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, University of Hafr Al Batin, Hafr Al Batin 39911, Saudi Arabia
Hamdan Albaqawi: College of Nursing, University of Hail, Hail 81491, Saudi Arabia
Khaled Al Hosis: Department of Nursing Education, Nursing College, Qassim University, Buraidah 51452, Saudi Arabia
Mohammed Aljeldah: Clinical Laboratory Science Department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, University of Hafr Al Batin, Hafr Al Batin 39911, Saudi Arabia
Mohammed Aljohan: Nursing College, Taibah University, Al-Madinah 42362, Saudi Arabia
Khalid Aljohani: Community Health Nursing, Department, Nursing College Taibah University, Al-Madinah 42356, Saudi Arabia
Noura Almadani: Nursing Management & Education Department, Nursing College, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh 84428, Saudi Arabia
Bader Alrasheadi: Nursing Department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Majmaah University, Majmaah 11952, Saudi Arabia
Rawaih Falatah: Nursing Administration & Education Department, College of Nursing, King Saud University, Riyadh 13253, Saudi Arabia
Joseph Almazan: School of Medicine, Nazarbayev University, Nursultan 010000, Kazakhstan

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-16

Abstract: The newly discovered coronavirus (COVID-19) has become a pandemic, infecting thousands of people around the world. This study examines nurses’ demographic information (age, gender, marital status, area of practice, total years of experience in the current hospital, work region, monthly salary, educational level, workplace, nationality, working hours per day, total nursing experience, and the respondents’ main source of information on COVID-19), awareness, attitudes, prevention, and perceptions of COVID-19 during the outbreak in Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional descriptive design of 500 nurses working at government and non-governmental hospitals in five regions in Saudi Arabia were selected using convenience sampling. The Kruskal–Wallis test was applied and the Mann–Whitney test was utilized as a post hoc test. The majority of nurses in this study, 96.85%, had excellent knowledge of COVID-19. Some (83.2%) of nurses reported significant prevention knowledge and treatment skills about COVID-19, while 7.6% had little knowledge about prevention. More than half of the nurses (60.4%) had high positive attitudes toward caring for COVID-19 patients. In conclusion, female nurses, married nurses, and bachelor’s degree nurses had greater awareness, better attitude, and prevention clinical experience towards COVID-19. Meanwhile, non-Saudi nurses had higher self-reported awareness, positive attitudes, optimal prevention, and positive perceptions compared to Saudi nurses. This study provides baseline information immediately needed to enable health authorities to prioritize training programs that support nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; nurses; outbreak; pandemic; Saudi Arabia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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