Public knowledge of novel coronavirus diseases 2019: a web-based national survey

Abstract

Abstract Background Although the existing cases of COVID-19 in China have been reducing since late February 2020, the confirmed cases are surging abroad. Improving public knowledge regarding COVID-19 is critical to control the epidemic. The study aimed to determine the China’s public knowledge of COVID-19 and attitude towards the control measures.Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in 48 hours, from 29 February 2020, 22:30 to 2 March 2020, 22:30, based on a self-administered web-based questionnaire. The survey was conducted on the WeChat network. Exponential non-discriminative snowball sampling were applied. The questionnaire was voluntarily submitted by WeChat users. The questionnaire covered the basic demographic information, public knowledge about epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19, psychological state, and attitude towards overall control measures. The primary outcome was the Chinese public knowledge regarding COVID-19 and the attitude towards the control measures and secondary outcome was psychological state of the public during this epidemic.Results The study included 10,905 participants and 10,399 valid questionnaires were included for analysis. Participants with tertiary education, younger age and healthcare workers had better overall knowledge compared with other participants (all P<0.05). About 91.9% of the participants believed in person-to-person transmission and 39.1% believed in animal-to-person transmission. No significant correlation between anxiety and regional number of existing cases was found, while participants in Hubei were more anxious than those in other regions. In general, 74.1% of participants acknowledged the effectiveness of overall control measures and it was negatively correlated with regional number of existing cases (r=-0.492, P=0.007).Conclusions In conclusion, the survey revealed that Chinese public had overall good knowledge regarding COVID-19 except for those indeterminate knowledge. With the dynamic change of global epidemic situation and more researches, further study would be conducted to explore the change of public knowledge and attitude about COVID-19 in the future.