Knowledge, attitudes and practices toward prevention and early detection of COVID-19 and associated factors among religious clerics and traditional healers in Gondar town, northwest Ethiopia: A community-based study

Background: COVID-19 control measures efforts are affected by the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the public, particularly religious clerics and traditional healers, who have close contact and are widely accepted by a significant number of community members. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted to determine knowledge, attitudes and practices towards COVID-19 and its associated factors among religious clerics and traditional healers in Gondar town. Study participants who met our inclusion criteria were selected using a simple random sampling technique. Data were collected by trained data collectors through face-to-face interviews. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. Knowledge, attitudes and practices scores were calculated to give the overall knowledge, attitude and practice score. Binary logistic regression was fitted to identify associated factors and odds ratio was used to measure the strength of the association. Results: A total of 410 religious clerics and traditional healers were included in the study with a response rate of 97.1%. Of the total participants, 60.7% (95%: CI (56-65%)) had good knowledge, 34.1% (95%: CI (30-39%)) had a positive attitude and 15.6% (95%: CI (12-­ 19%)) had good practices towards prevention and early detection of COVID-19. Less than one third of the participants practiced physical distancing (28%) and facemask use (17.8%). In multivariate logistic regression, age, educational status and marital status were signifi­ cantly associated with knowledge score. Likewise, age and marital status were significantly associated with the positive attitude score. In addition, age, educational status, and the presence of underlying disease were significantly associated with the good practice score. Conclusion: Majority of the participants had poor practice and negative attitudes. Therefore, there should be a sensitization program to fill the gap in the knowledge, attitudes and practice measures of COVID-19 especially for elderly and illiterates.