COVID-19 Infection – Awareness and Practices of Cancer Patients and Their Attendants: An Experience from Pakistan

COVID-19 Infection – Awareness and Practices of Cancer Patients and Their Attendants: An Experience from Pakistan

Author Info

Corresponding Author
Afshan Asghar Rasheed
Assistant Professor, Medical Oncology, Department of Oncology, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Karachi, Pakistan

A B S T R A C T

Introduction: Cancer patients are prone to infections, including COVID-19 because they are immune-comprised secondary to cancer itself as well as due to their treatment. As a principal health care provider, it is imperative that their awareness and practices should be assessed and rectified in a timely manner. Methodology & Results: This is a cross sectional and prospective study, performed in the Oncology OPD of SIUT, Pakistan. Total 306 participants were included. Average percentage of awareness was 39.4% vs 36.6% were found to be low, but patient (72.7%) showed more careful behaviour then their care taker (61.5%). In query related to use of face mask every time while being outside the house, 14.4% vs 23.8% did not practice it. For hand hygiene, 93.4% vs 49.1% were following these measures. Reasons for not following these precautions were: i) lack of information, 63% vs 37% ii) this virus is not lethal, 37% vs 63%. Conclusion: Awareness and practical implementation of knowledge is not according to international guidelines and there is a dire need to have a proper awareness campaign for the masses to improve the acceptability of Corona virus as a major health risk concern.

Article Info

Article Type
Research Article
Publication history
Received: Tue 15, Jun 2021
Accepted: Sat 26, Jun 2021
Published: Tue 13, Jul 2021
Copyright
© 2023 Afshan Asghar Rasheed. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.COR.2021.07.03