Conhecimentos, atitudes e práticas de idosos frente à covid -19

Abstract

Introduction: COVID -19 is an emerging breathing disease caused by a new virus, the SARS-COV-2. The risk of death by COVID-19 increases with age, especially for elderly people with chronic illnesses. In order to ensure success in controlling the pandemic, it is highly important to follow the protection measures, which are largely influenced by people¿s knowledge, attitudes, and practices (CAP). The CAP methodology aims to collect data from a percentage of the population and enable the elaboration of intervention plans. Objective: Identify the elderly knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding COVID-19, in the community. Method: It is an analytic cross sectional study, having the elderly population as a target. A Family Health Strategy Program assisted them and, the criteria applied were: Sociodemographic profile; The KAP (which stands for Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices - KAP). Results: 89 elderly individuals were taken into the study, with ages ranging from 68 to 96 years old and predominantly female. About the knowledge when it comes to the pandemic, when asked if human contact and eating wild animals meat would transmit the COVID-19 virus, 34,8% (n= 31) have answered "yes". In regards to preventive measures, 97,8% (n=87) have agreed that using masks is necessary to avoid contamination from the new Coronavirus. The majority of them, 85.4% (n=76) have shown themselves hopeful towards the end of the pandemic since they believe that Brazil would win the battle against COVID-19. The data shows that elderly people with or without education present positive attitudes regarding the pandemic, since in both groups, in the event of feeling the symptoms of COVID-19, they would seek assistance from the local healthservice. Conclusion: The majority of elderly people not only know about the disease but also have positive attitudes and adopt practices to control the COVID-19 contamination. A relevant point found in this survey is that even elderlies with low educational reach, equally show fair knowledge, attitudes, and practices