The Extent of Commitment of Saudis During Holy Ramadan to Social Distancing Measures Required for the Prevention of Tran
- PDF / 567,791 Bytes
- 10 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 62 Downloads / 121 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
The Extent of Commitment of Saudis During Holy Ramadan to Social Distancing Measures Required for the Prevention of Transmission of COVID‑19 Nouf Alotaibi1 · Sattam Almutairi2 · Moawad Alotaibi3 · Mishal M. Alotaibi3 · Tahani Alsufian4 Accepted: 10 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Coronavirus disease (hereafter COVID-19) was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020. People were admitted to hospitals complaining of fever, fatigue, cough, and difficulty breathing. Consequently, the strategy being adopted to limit the spread of COVID-19 is to encourage people in society to follow preventive measures. We aimed to estimate how the knowledge of and compliance with safe distancing measures affected the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia during Holy Ramadan. A cross-sectional survey was implemented in the central regions of Saudi Arabia from 24th of April to 22nd May to coincide with Ramadan. The study was conducted using a Google forum distributed through social media. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling of the Saudi population. In total, 1515 participants completed the survey. A significant difference between males and females was observed in answering questions about committing to: not attending gatherings, keeping a safe distance, not making physical contact, and staying at home during partial lockdown. In general, participants in our study demonstrated excellent adherence to all social distance measures, considered essential for limiting the spread and progression of COVID-19. However, attitudes regarding reduced physical contact was poor in the Makkah region, which necessitates greater efforts to educate and inform people about the associated risks. Keywords COVID-19 · Saudi · Ramadhan · Pandemic · Social distance
Introduction * Nouf Alotaibi [email protected] Sattam Almutairi b‑[email protected] Moawad Alotaibi [email protected] Mishal M. Alotaibi [email protected] Tahani Alsufian [email protected] 1
Clinical Pharmacy Department, College of Pharmacy, Umm Al Qura University, Mecca, Saudi Arabia
2
Administration Pharmacy, Maternity and Children Hospital, Mecca, Saudi Arabia
3
Family Medicine, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
4
Quality Pharmacy, King Abdul-Aziz Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020 [1]. The newly discovered virus first emerged in Wuhan City, in the Hubei Province of China at the end of December, 2019 [2, 3]. People in Wuhan were being admitted to hospitals, complaining of fever, fatigue, cough, and difficulty breathing. Furthermore, the symptoms of the illness ranged from mild to severe, in certain cases leading to respiratory failure and death [2–6]. The main features were identified as a severe acute respiratory syndrome [1, 3, 5, 6]. The number of people infected in Wuhan increased tre
Data Loading...
