Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 on Attitudes towards SOPs: A Study of Smart Lockdown across Generations in Pakistan

Abstract

Countries all across the world are struggling to prevent a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus called COVID-19. However, for a country like Pakistan, which already faces challenges such as an economic shutdown, a shortage of healthcare financing, and prevalent false beliefs, the only known approach to stop the spread of COVID-19 is through prevention and social isolation. Since public awareness of COVID-19 is essential to its containment, a survey was designed to assess its people's level of information and attitudes towards SOPs and smart lockdown across generations during COVID-19. The general population of Pakistan was asked to fill out an online questionnaire that has been pre-validated. SPSS v18 was used for the statistical analysis of descriptive data. Scores of > 4 (range: 0-8) were given for adequate knowledge, and scores of > 3 (range: 0-5) were given for good perception. To determine what elements contribute to having sufficient understanding, a logistic regression analysis was conducted. There was a wide diversity of ages and levels of education among the 102 people from selected three generations who filled out the survey. The majority of respondents had good perceptions and a sufficient level of knowledge. Gender, age, education, income and occupation of the participants, all showed statistically significant variations in knowledge and perception. Multivariate analysis revealed that higher levels of education and female were significant predictors of sufficient knowledge regarding the disease and perception. Thus, adherence to preventative protocols and accurate information dissemination depends on the success of educational activities that emphasize the cure of the disease and relevant evidence about the disease.