Community Adherence Towards COVID-19 Preventive Health Messages in Somalia

Abstract: Background: The coronavirus infection was first reported from Wuhan province, China then it spread becoming a pandemic
reaching everywhere in the world. As of the time of writing this article (30th July 2020), the coronavirus pandemic resulted in over 16
million cases and over 650 thousand deaths worldwide. Objective: The objectives of this study was to evaluate community knowledge
and practice to COVID-19 preventive measures. Methods: The study was community based cross sectional study design and target
population were Somali adults (≥18 years of age) living in Somalia and using social media, voluntarily accepted to respond the
questionnaire after giving short introductory text as informed consent. The data collection technique was online Google Forms, closed
ended questionnaire and number of participants in the study was 526 subjects and selected through convenient non-probability sampling
technique. Data were analyzed using SPSS. The data frequency and percentage were presented and also bivariate and multivariate
analyses were conducted. Results: Among the respondents; 54.4% were male while 45.6% were male and in general, their age bracket of
15-25 had the highest percentage of 65.8% followed by the age bracket of 26-35 with a percentage of 26.8 and those with 36-45 years
had a percentage of 3.0% and finally those above the age of 45 with corona virus information had a percentage of 4.4. Due to the high
level of educational interaction with elite members of the society, those who went to university had better knowledge about the virus with
85.9 percent followed by the secondary level with 7.0% and then the uneducated with formal education 6.7% information and the least
knowledgeable about the existence of the virus were the primary school who were having a four (4) percentage. About 76% of
participants had a poor level of preventive measures practice toward Covid-19 and 22.4% had a good level of preventive practice toward
Covid-19. 90.7% of the population also wash their hands frequently after they interact with people and only 9.3% don’t practice hand
washing technique. Conclusion: In a nut shell; the study founded that the older the ages of the participants; the less information they have
and inversely the higher the education; the more knowledge they have about covid-19. Majority of the participant didn’t wear mask when
they go outside their home. Closely half of the total population did not give space when they talking to someone else. The study
recommends awareness promotion to elder people and health education to illiterate people about covid-19. Also the study suggests to
wear mask when people going outside and have one meter space when people talking.