COMMUNITY KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, AND BEHAVIOR TOWARDS SOCIAL DISTANCING POLICY AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING TRANSMISSION OF COVID-19 IN INDONESIA

Abstract

Background: Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 recently became a global pandemic, affecting countries, such as Indonesia, worldwide. Social distancing is one of the mitigation strategies recommended to reduce the risk of morbidity and mortality caused by COVID-19. Community compliance with social distancing is a part of the pandemic control. Aims: This study identified knowledge, attitudes, and behavior towards the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission through social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic among the Indonesian community. Methods: This descriptive study used a cross-sectional design, distributing closed questions in an online questionnaire randomly to 34 provinces in Indonesia on social media networks and by email. This study successfully collected data from 1,102 respondents from 29 provinces in Indonesia. The data were analyzed descriptively by calculating frequency, percentage, and cross-tabulation. Results: This study successfully identified 99%, 59%, and 93% of respondents with good knowledge, positive attitudes, and good behavior towards social distancing, respectively. Among the respondents who had good knowledge, 58.85% showed positive attitudes and 93.3% good behavior. The vast majority of respondents who had positive attitudes showed good behavior (96.7%). Conclusion: The Indonesian community had good knowledge, attitude, and behavior towards social distancing as a way to prevent the virus transmission. This strongly supports the use of such a disaster mitigation strategy in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia.