Development and Validation of a Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Questionnaire on COVID-19 (KAP COVID-19)

• Published in: International journal of environmental research and public health Vol. 18; no. 14; p. 7493
• Main Author: Park, Da-In
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 14.07.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Attitudes; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Data collection; Disease control; Disease prevention; Disease transmission; Epidemics; Evaluation; Factor analysis; Guidelines; Infections; Infectious diseases; Knowledge; Literature reviews; Nursing education; Pandemics; Quantitative psychology; Questionnaires; Reliability analysis; Respiratory diseases; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Students; Validity
• ISSN: 1660-4601; 1661-7827; 1660-4601
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18147493

Given its highly contagious nature and an absence of a specific antiviral agent to this date, the key to controlling the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and decreasing the infection rate is adherence to preventive measures. It is essential to understand an individual’s knowledge, attitudes and practices toward COVID-19 since public adherence to health guidelines relies heavily on these aspects. However, there is no validated instrument that evaluates knowledge, attitudes and practices toward COVID-19. Thus, this study aimed to develop and validate such tool. A questionnaire was developed based on international and national guidelines and a review of the literature. Initial items were evaluated by 10 experts to determine content validity. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability testing were conducted with a convenience sample of 229 nursing students. Based on the content, face validity and factor analysis, 34 items were selected. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of 0.735 indicated a highly acceptable score with a significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity (p < 0.0001). The internal consistency coefficients indicated acceptable reliability of the tool (Cronbach’s α = 0.75). The KAP COVID-19 is a valid instrument that can be used to evaluate knowledge, attitudes and practices toward COVID-19.