Abstract:
Background: Covid-19 is a new strain of coronavirus that caused an outbreak of respiratory
illness. Several measures were implemented to avoid the disease. Countries started to advice
people to practice social distancing, wear face masks, hand hygiene and to avoid crowded
places. Different people showed different attitudes towards this.
Objectives: To study the knowledge, attitudes and to identify the behavioural changes towards
Covid-19 among people with online access in Sri Lanka.
Methods: A mixed methods design was used. Online questionnaire was circulated among
general public. Eleven participants were interviewed to understand the behavioural changes
during Covid-19 outbreak. The quantitative data collected were analysed using Microsoft Excel
and SPSS software version 25.0. The qualitative data were thematically analysed using QDA
miner lite.
Results: A total of 339 participants completed the survey. Educational level of the participants
(28.9%) is diploma level or above. From the participants, 70.5% knew that the first Covid-19
diagnosis was in Wuhan, China. About 90.3% knew the symptoms of coronavirus disease and
88.5% knew that it spreads through respiratory droplets. Nevertheless, only 30.4% knew that
Covid-19 was caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus. From the participants, 20.6% displayed negative
attitude towards infected patients. Most respondents stated that the infected should be isolated
(78.1%) and separately treated (88.8%). Among the participants, 74.0% strongly agreed about
their role in protecting the health of the community. Majority of the participants stated that they
exhibit behavioural changes like wearing a mask, handwashing and social distancing at public
places, while others stated that they would prefer to stay at home. The respondent stated
frequent hand washing, wearing masks, avoiding crowded places, always maintaining a distance
of one-meter, fumigation and maintaining personnel hygiene would help to prevent being
infected.
Conclusions: The findings revealed an adequate level of knowledge and satisfactory
behavioural changes towards Covid-19. Attitudes towards Covid-19 were a mixture of both
positive and negative viewpoints.
