TITLE:
Knowledge of Covid-19 among Medical Scientists in Nigeria
AUTHORS:
Lekan-Agunbiade Titilayo Tosin, Agunbiade Olalekan Isaiah, Omosebi Funmi Ayomide, Ogundare Stephen Olusegun
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Coronavirus Disease, Knowledge, Laboratory Diagnosis, Medical Scientists
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biosciences and Medicines,
Vol.9 No.6,
June
4,
2021
ABSTRACT: Background: The impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have created a need for constant improvement in the effectiveness and efficiency of laboratory diagnosis to contain the spread, aid the treatment and management of positive cases. Inadequate knowledge of COVD-19 and its laboratory diagnosis among medical scientists is detrimental to the reliability of laboratory results, which are critical in the control, and management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purposes of this study are to determine the knowledge of COVD-19 and to assess the knowledge of laboratory diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 among medical scientists. Methodology: An internet-broadcasted and validated questionnaire was used to obtain data from 131 medical scientists in Nigeria. The generated data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 25. Results: More than half of respondents had good general knowledge and causes (52%), mode of transmission (52.7%), and symptoms (54.2%) of COVID-19. However, only a few (χ2 = 4.173; p = 0.041) and level at work (F-ratio = 3.552, p = 0.016) have significant effects on the knowledge of COVID-19 and knowledge of laboratory diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 among the study participants. Conclusion: There is a need for improvement in the knowledge of COVID-19 diagnosis through relevant work level (work experience) and gender-based training as well as continuous professional development programs for medical scientists in Nigeria.