Compliance with COVID-19 public health and social preventive measures among Employees of Jimma zone, Ethiopia: Application of Health Belief Model

Abstract

Abstract Background COVID-19 is still threatening the world and has health, social, economic and political crisis. COVID-19 preventive measures are of having paramount importance for the disease mitigation. Governmental and private employees’ compliance with COVID-19preventive measures are highly important in influencing their friends, spouse, families and community at the large to adhere to the preventive measures. Objectives Compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures and associated factors among employees of Seka and Kersa districts, Jimma zone, Ethiopia, 2020. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted from 4–22 January 2021. A total of 395 employees from randomly selected of public and private institutions were participated in the study. The data were collected using a pre-tested structured tool. The collected data were entered to EPI data manager version 4.6 and exported to Stata version 16.0 for analyses. Descriptive analyses were performed as necessary. Binary and multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to identify determinants of compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures. Adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were used to determine the presence and strength of association. Results This study showed that nearly three fourth (74.68%) of employees were compliant with the COVID-19 preventive measures. Being employees of private institution (adjusted β = 3.12; 95% CI 0.31 to 5.94; p = 0.030), having history of chronic illness (adjusted β = 4.06; 95% CI 1.58 to 6.54; p = 0.001), perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 (adjusted β = 0.38; 95% CI 0.16 to 0.61; p = 0.001), self-efficacy to utilize the preventive measures (adjusted β = 0.70; 95% CI 0.54 to 0.86; p < 0.001) and existence of reminders/cues to utilize the preventive measures (adjusted β = 0.47; 95% CI 0.27 to 0.67; p < 0.001) had statistically significant association with COVID-19 preventive measures. Conclusions We found that one fourth of the employees were non-compliant with COVID-19 preventive measures. Type of working institution, respondents’ history of chronic illness, perceived susceptibility to COVID-19, self-efficacy to utilize the preventive measures and existence of reminders /cues to utilize the preventive measures predicted employees’ compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures. Therefore, behaviour change communication and interventions strategies guided by health belief model need to be considered by stakeholders.