Assessing knowledge, attitude, and practice towards COVID-19 among sub assistant agriculture officers: An empirical study in Bangladesh

Abstract

The government of Bangladesh pays special attention to the agriculture sector to limit the current and after-effects of COVID-19 regarding food insecurity. Sub assistant agriculture officers - the frontline extension workers are working to maintain the normal trend of production and marketing amid COVID-19 pandemic, which, in turn, possess severe health threat of virus infection. Therefore, we investigated the knowledge, attitude, and practice towards COVID-19 among the sub assistant agriculture officers. The study was conducted in Gopalganj and Narail districts of Bangladesh with a total of 110 respondents. Data were collected through group interviews using a structured questionnaire in June 2020. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi square tests and binary logistic regressions. We found that about 66.36 percent of the respondents had good knowledge; 65.45 percent had positive attitude towards successful control and prevention; and 62.73 percent were taking good preventive practices towards COVID-19. However, still good number of the respondents had poor knowledge (33.64 percent), less positive attitude (34.55 percent) and poor practice (37.27 percent). Age, gender and service experience were significantly associated with good knowledge, and age and service experience were significantly associated with good practice. We recommend for the continuous flow of COVID-19 information from the health department as well as awareness campaigns and official circular about symptoms and preventive measures from the controlling authority, i.e. Department of Agricultural Extension. Finally, the limited sample size of the study advises to be more careful about generalizing the findings in other parts of the country.

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.30935/jconseph/9364

Repository URI

http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/257533/