title: Healthcare Professionals' Awareness, Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Beliefs about Ebola at Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: A Cross-sectional Study.
abstract: A poor understanding of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) among Health Care Professionals (HCPs) may put our lives at risk. We aimed to assess the awareness, knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs of HCPs towards Ebola at Gondar University Hospital (GUH) in Northwest Ethiopia. We conducted a hospital based, cross-sectional survey among 245 randomly selected HCPs working at GUH from August-October, 2015. A validated, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. We calculated descriptive statistics with P<0.05 being statistically significant. Of the 245 participants, 211 (86.1%) completed the study. The majority had heard about EVD and used news media (62%) as a source of information. Still, many were afraid of getting EVD (56.4%; P=0.001). A significant number of HCPs thought EVD can cause paralysis like polio (45%) and can be treated with antibiotics (28.4%). In addition, 46.4% of the HCPs felt anger or fear towards Ebola infected patients (P=0.006). We identified poor knowledge and negative incorrect beliefs among doctors and allied health professionals. There is a need for intensive training for all HCPs reduce EVD risk.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Gondar-College of Medicine and Health Sciences, School of Pharmacy , Gondar, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Tamrat Befekadu
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Abebe
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Gondar-College of Medicine and Health Sciences, School of Pharmacy , Gondar, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Akshaya Srikanth
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Bhagavathula
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Gondar-College of Medicine and Health Sciences, School of Pharmacy , Gondar, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Yonas Getaye
authors.initials: YG
authors.lastname: Tefera
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, UCSI University , Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Akram
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ahmad
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, UCSI University , Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Muhammad Umair
authors.initials: MU
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Gondar-College of Medicine and Health Sciences, School of Pharmacy , Gondar, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Sewunet Admasu
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Belachew
authors.affiliation: Center for Healthy Communities, Division of Clinical Sciences, UCR School of Medicine , Riverside, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Brandon
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Gondar-College of Medicine and Health Sciences, School of Pharmacy , Gondar, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Tadesse Melaku
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Abegaz
keywords: Attitudes; Ebola Virus Disease; Ethiopia; Health Care Professionals; Knowledge