Perception and awareness of covid-19 among urban and rural population – a survey

Abstract

Introduction: SARS-CoV-2 is one of seven types of coronavirus. Infections caused by them range from mild to deadly. Some complications of COVID-19 can be caused by a condition known as cytokine release syndrome or cytokine storm. The patients with COVID-19 should be protected from nosocomial infection in hospitals. This study mainly aims to know about the awareness and understanding of rural and urban populations about the COVID-19 virus. Materials and Methods: A total of 100 participants were involved in this survey. Participants in the study belong to rural (Am-mapettai, Kachirapalayam-Kallakurichi district of Tamil Nadu) and urban (Trichy, Salem, Madurai, and Chennai cities) places of Tamil Nadu, India. The questions were simple and understandable and it was distributed through WhatsApp and the Google forms. Data was collected from filled questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS software. Results: From the 100 responses, 53% of the study population was urban and 47% belong to rural areas. 66% of participants accept that urban populations are more prone to the spread of coronavirus infection than the urban population. 60% of participants agree that both urban and rural people are aware of coronavirus. 65% of participants say that COVID-19 spread occurs due to droplet transmission and touching objects used by infected patients. 65% of participants say that mouth mask, handwash, and social isolation protects from the transmission of infection. The majority of the urban population responded that the urban areas are more prone to COVID-19 infection than the rural areas. However, there was no significant difference between the opinion of urban and rural populations on the infection-prone areas, p-value = 0.687 (>0.05). The majority of the urban population (41%) believes that coronavirus spreads through both the routes (droplets and touching objects used by infected patients) and the rural population responded less (24%) for both the routes of transmission, p-value = 0.016 (<0.05), hence it was statistically significant. More of the urban population (27%) believes that the lockdown was very useful in minimizing the coronavirus transmission when compared to the rural population (15%), p-value = 0.004 (<0.05), hence it was statistically significant. Conclusion: According to the study, rural people are less aware of Covid-19 than urban people. Rural people need far more knowledge and awareness about COVID-19 for prevention and control of infection.