Public knowledge, attitudes and practices towards COVID-19: A cross-sectional study in Malaysia.
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
In an effort to mitigate the outbreak of COVID-19, many countries have imposed drastic lockdown, movement control or shelter in place orders on their residents. The effectiveness of these mitigation measures is highly dependent on cooperation and compliance of all members of society. The knowledge, attitudes and practices people hold toward the disease play an integral role in determining a society's readiness to accept behavioural change measures from health authorities. The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge levels, attitudes and practices toward COVID-19 among the Malaysian public. A cross-sectional online survey of 4,850 Malaysian residents was conducted between 27th March and 3rd April 2020. The survey instrument consisted of demographic characteristics, 13 items on knowledge, 3 items on attitudes and 3 items on practices, modified from a previously published questionnaire on COVID-19. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, t-tests and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted. The overall correct rate of the knowledge questionnaire was 80.5%. Most participants held positive attitudes toward the successful control of COVID-19 (83.1%), the ability of Malaysia to conquer the disease (95.9%) and the way the Malaysian government was handling the crisis (89.9%). Most participants were also taking precautions such as avoiding crowds (83.4%) and practising proper hand hygiene (87.8%) in the week before the movement control order started. However, the wearing of face masks was less common (51.2%). This survey is among the first to assess knowledge, attitudes and practice in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. The results highlight the importance of consistent messaging from health authorities and the government as well as the need for tailored health education programs to improve levels of knowledge, attitudes and practices.
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In Malaysia, 80.5% had adequate knowledge about COVID-19 during the early phase of the pandemic.
“In Malaysia, a high level of adequate knowledge could be found for 80.5%, however, the actual behavioural practice of wearing facemask was less common (51.2%) during the early phase of pandemic [34].”
From Digital health literacy, online information-seeking behaviour, and satisfaction of Covid-19 information among the university students of East and South-East Asia (2022) · cites this paper as [34]
The Results (Assessment of knowledge) identify 80.5% as the overall correct-answer rate, not the percentage of participants with adequate knowledge. They report that 77.2% scored above 10, representing an acceptable level of knowledge. (LLM, conf=0.89)
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn Malaysia, 51.2% reported wearing facemask during the early phase of the pandemic.
“In Malaysia, a high level of adequate knowledge could be found for 80.5%, however, the actual behavioural practice of wearing facemask was less common (51.2%) during the early phase of pandemic [34].”
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- Authors
- Azlan, A. A., Hamzah, M. R., Sern, T. J., Ayub, S. H., & Mohamad, E.
- Affiliations
- National University of Malaysia (MY)
- Universiti Malaysia Perlis (MY)
- Sunway University (MY)
- Corresponding author
- Mohamad, Emma
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2020-05-21
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- e0233668
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7241824
- OpenAlex
- W3026091149
- Cited by
- 1,148
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 90 · 2023: 169 · 2022: 306 · 2021: 395 · 2020: 135
- FWCI
- 312.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- medRxiv (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Universiti Putra Malaysia Institutional Repository (Universiti Putra Malaysia) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (SK-2020-007)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › COVID-19 Prevention and Impact
- Social Sciences › Communication › Communication and COVID-19 Impact
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Modeling and Simulation › COVID-19 epidemiological studies
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, public knowledge, public attitudes, health practices, masking, hand hygiene, Movement Control Order, lockdown compliance, health education, government crisis communication, Malaysia
- MeSH terms
- Betacoronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Malaysia, Male, Middle Aged, Pneumonia, Viral, Surveys and Questionnaires, Coronavirus Infections, Young Adult, Pandemics
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