Abstract:
Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the outbreak of a new corona virus
disease, COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern in January and considered
it as a pandemic in March 2020. WHO reported on July, 2020 over 10% of COVID-19 infection
accounted by health care workers globally. However, little is known about the level of health workers’
preventive behaviors though they are front liners in the outbreak response.
Objective: This study is aimed to assess preventive behaviors of COVID-19 and associated factors
among health professionals at public hospitals in Dire Dawa and Harar, Eastern Ethiopia, 2021.
Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among 410 study participants from
June1-30, 2021 at selected public hospitals in Dire Dawa Administration and Harar. Stratified
sampling was employed to form strata between professions and participants selected by simple random
sampling. Data were collected using structured and self-administrated questionnaire. Data entered to
Epidata version 3.1 and analysis was carried out using to SPSS version 26. Descriptive statistics was
done and depicted in tables and figures. Logistic regression analysis was employed to see the
association between dependent and independent variables. Adjusted odds ratio and 95% confidence
interval were used. A variable with p-value <0.05 considered as statistical significance association.
Result: A total of 410 health professionals participated in this study with a response rate of 97.16%.
More than half 234(57.1%) of the study participants were males. About 187(45.6%), 242(59.0%) and
260(63.4%) had good preventive behavior, good knowledge and positive attitude towards COVID-19
respectively. Female sex [AOR: 0.150; 95% CI (0.085-0.266)], having positive attitude [AOR: 1.960;
95% CI (1.088-3.529)], presence of IP guideline [AOR: 1.787; 95% CI (1.004-3.182)], high work load
[AOR: 0.566; 95% CI (0.325-0.987)] and high-risk perception towards COVID-19 [AOR: 1.860; 95%
CI (1.083-3.195)] were factors associated with COVID-19 preventive behavior.
Conclusion: This study identified that 46% of participants had good preventive behavior towards
COVID-19. Female sex, positive attitude, IP guideline, high workload and high-risk perception
associated with COVID-19 infection preventive behaviors. Strategy that facilitates practicing
preventive behaviors should be implemented.
